Posted on 11/08/2005 7:02:02 AM PST by Tolik
As the night falls, the "troubles" start; and the pattern is always the same. Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones, and, ransack cinemas, libraries and schools. Once the police have arrived on the scene, the rioters attack them with stones, knives and baseball bats. The police respond by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasions, blank shots in the air. Sometimes the youths fire back, with real bullets.
The scenes described above are not from the West Bank but from 16 French cities, most of them close to the capital Paris, that have been plunged in a European version of the "intifada" which at the time of writing appears beyond control.
When the troubles first began in Clichy-sous-Bois, an underprivileged suburb east of Paris, a week ago France's bombastic Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy responded by sending over 400 heavily armed policemen to "impose the laws of the republic" and promised to crush " the louts and hooligans" within the day. Within a few days, however, it had dawned on anyone who wanted to know that this was no "outburst by criminal elements" that could be handled with a mixture of braggadocio and batons. By last Monday everyone in Paris was speaking of "an unprecedented crisis". Both the interior minister and his boss, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, had to cancel foreign trips to deal with the riots.
But how did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: Stealing parts of parked cars. Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened as the police have not been present in that suburb for years. The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something that meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them. Once the police arrived on the scene the youth, who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years, got really angry. A brief chase took place in the street and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted. Once news of their death was out, Clichy was all up in arms. With cries of "God is Great", bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee. The French authorities, however, could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from part of the French territory. So, they hit back by sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.
Within hours the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the "occupied territories." By mid-week the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris with a population of 5.5 million.
But who lives in the affected areas?
In Clichy itself more than 80 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim immigrants or their children, mostly from Arab and black Africa. In other affected towns the Muslim immigrant community accounts for between 30 and 60 percent of the population.
But these are not the only figures that matter. Average unemployment in the affected areas is estimated at around 30 percent and, when it comes to young would-be workers, reaches 60 percent. In these suburban towns, built in the 1950s in imitation of the Soviet social housing of the Stalinist era, people live in crammed conditions, sometimes several generations in a tiny apartment, and see "real French life" only on television.
The French used to flatter themselves for the success of their policy of "assimilation" which was supposed to turn immigrants from any backgrounds into "proper Frenchmen" within a generation at most. The policy of assimilation worked as long as immigrants came to France in drips and drops and thus could merge into a much larger mainstream. Assimilation, however, cannot work when in most schools in the affected areas fewer than 20 percent of the pupils are native French speakers.
France has also lost another powerful mechanism for assimilation: The obligatory military service that was abolished in the 1990s.
As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for "calmer places", thus making assimilation still more difficult. In some areas it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.
The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid. Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be re-organized on the basis of the "millet" system that was in force in the Ottoman Empire. Under that system each religious community is regarded as "millet" and enjoys the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.
In some parts of France de facto "millet" system is already in place. In these areas all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheikhs. The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling wine and alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin" such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters to close down and, seized control of much of the local administration often through permeation.
A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulany-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out!
"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheikhs, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.
President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb".
It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture" but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life.
So what is the solution? One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an advisor on Islamic affairs to Chirac, is the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis.
The problem with Kepel's vision, however, is that it does not address the important issue of political power: Who will rule this new Andalusia — Muslims or the largely secularist Frenchmen?
Suddenly, French politics has become worth watching again, even though for the wrong reasons.
This item is available on the Benador Associates website, at http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/18823
Actually, if they have the cojones to pull it off (doubtful, but possible, considering the history of French colonialism), mass deportations of Muslims won't really be 'bad stuff': it'll mean that they'll manage to save their culture. If not, well, they can bid their culture adieu and say hello to dhimmitude.
There is also a difference. The U.S. tries to assimilate cultures into its own and vice-a-versa. The expression "melting pot" sounds trite, but it is our approach. The French approach is the permanent ghetto.
Anyone know where the French Foreign Legion is based these days?
You insult law abiding Christians by stating that, not to mention cheapening and distorting what "being" Christian actually entails.
Few churches are being torched. Perhaps the fueligans are keeping them available to use for sanctuary.
This is naive wishful thinking as are almost all liberal 'solutions'.
Why wouldn't the french Muslims try this? This abhorrent behavior has been rewarded in Israel by the commitment to form a Palestinian state within Israel.
My intent was not to insult Christians. If I had a choice - however - of being over run by Islamic illegals or Christian illegals I think the lesser of the two evils is clear.
They need Le Pen right now to deal with this insurrection. These f...ing leftist politicians are allowing france to be overrun and destroyed. The muslims see the frenchies as a bunch of "gumballs". Le Pen should take over and arm all frenchmen who have had military experience. Place chirac and villepin under arrest. The french marines and foreign legion should begin search and destroy ops throughout these muslim regions. All mosques should be raided and razed. All imams and other trouble makers rounded up and imprisoned. All muslims deported. Thereby restore France to its traditional state.
A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulany-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out!
"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheikhs, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.
President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb".
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
Ok, easy there Jean Marie. I think Le Pen is a bit dangerous, but perhaps another member of his far right party will be able to temper Le Pen's ideas and come up with a lighter version of the solutions you put forth.
What I want to know is, where are those UN troops hiding?
Ebony and i-voryyyyy live together in perfect harmonyyyyyy
Europeans need to wake up!! I believe Americans are waking up. The muslim objective is NOT to become model citizens and loving neighbors. Their objective IS to exploit the liberties of their host countries in order to to subvert and transform host countries into the same kind of islamic S#!THOLE they left behind. Islam is a subhuman demonic cult that should not be tolerated by any civilized society and worthy only of extermination.
Great article. Thank you for the link.
The perplexing thing is this spin (even on FOX) that the chaos in France is somehow justified. One of my liberal friends said that 9/11 was our fault for not trying to understand the terrorist's gripes with Western culture. I told him his efforts at appeasement would not end until every woman in America was covered from head to toe in burkas. They want to destroy non-Islamic cultures. France will realize they are in a war too late. Bush realizes it now, even if he can't label the war by its true name.
A_R
Didn't Ferdinand and Isabella expell the Muslims from Spain in 1492?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.