Posted on 11/08/2005 4:58:25 PM PST by MikeA
The French political response to the continuing riots has focused most on the need for more multicultural "understanding" of, and public spending on, the disenchanted mass in the country's grim banlieues (suburbs). What has been largely ignored has been the role of France's economic system in contributing to the current crisis. State-directed capitalism may seem ideal for such American admirers such as Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The European Dream," and others on the left. Yet it is precisely this highly structured and increasingly infracted economic system that has so limited opportunities for immigrants and their children. In a country where short workweeks and early retirement are sacred, there is little emphasis on creating new jobs and even less on grass-roots entrepreneurial activity. Since the '70s, America has created 57 million new jobs, compared with just four million in Europe (with most of those jobs in government). In France and much of Western Europe, the economic system is weighted toward the already employed (the overwhelming majority native-born whites) and the growing mass of retirees. Those ensconced in state and corporate employment enjoy short weeks, early and well-funded retirement and first dibs on the public purse. So although the retirement of large numbers of workers should be opening up new job opportunities, unemployment among the young has been rising: In France, joblessness among workers in their 20s exceeds 20%, twice the overall national rate. In immigrant banlieues, where the population is much younger, average unemployment reaches 40%, and higher among the young. To make matters worse, the elaborate French welfare state -- government spending accounts for roughly half of GDP compared with 36% in the U.S. -- also forces high tax burdens on younger workers lucky enough to have a job, to pay for an escalating number of pensioners and benefit recipients.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Access the Opinion Journal by clicking my screen name and using my log on info.
Immigrants never riot here? There were plenty of immigrants rioting in L.A. in 1992.
Excellent article demonstrating the differences between the stagnant socialist economy of France and our open-ended capitalism, of which I'm a huge fan.
Capitalism has its fans plusses, including that everybody has to work their butt off and doesn't have a whole lot of time to make trouble...
When the Muslim's population reaches a certain critical mass they will start rioting...GUARANTEED!
Check any country that never had Muslims in it and now do. There are 22 conflicts going on in the world right now. 100% involve Muslims.
FC
thanks for your log in. I loved this article. My friend is always telling me how great her cousins have it in Europe. It seems like socialism is a house of cards. I can't wait to share this article with her.
Back in the mid-90's, I worked for a company that had an office in France. IIRC, if you laid-off a French worker, the company had to continue paying his/her wage and bennies for months afterward. Not a big enticement for foreign investment.
The devil finds work for idle hands.
"...there are several indications that the riots are not wholly or solely about economic and social marginalization at all, and that the Islamic jihad agenda is a significant element fueling their continuing spread:
• It has long been established that there is a significant jihadist presence among French Muslims. Recently six Muslims in Paris were arrested for recruiting for the jihad in Iraq.
• The rioters have been shouting the jihad battle cry, “Allahu akbar.” As Muhammad Atta wrote in his final exhortation to himself, “When the confrontation begins, strike like champions who do not want to go back to this world. Shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers.” While the mainstream media continues to identify the rioters as “French-born youths of Arab or African origin, many of them Muslim,” in fact the Islamic identity of the rioters is quite clear: rioters have avoided Muslim-owned businesses, preferring obviously non-Muslim targets.
• The rioters have thrown Molotov cocktails at two French synagogues, making it likely that they subscribe to the deeply rooted hatred of Jews that so many jihadists share. They have also set two churches on fire, further reinforcing the impression that they view their struggle as fundamentally religious, and consider the terrorizing of Jews and Christians to be part of their religious responsibility, in accord with Qur’an 9:29, which directs Muslims to wage war even against “the People of the Book”: the Qur’an’s term for — primarily — Jews and Christians.
• Mouloud Dahmani is a Muslim leader in France who is trying to prevail upon the French to allow for a group of Muslim Brotherhood sheikhs to negotiate an end to the riots. The Muslim Brotherhood, of course, is the first modern Islamic jihad organization and the direct forefather of Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Dahmani has declared: “All we demand is to be left alone.” This is a strange statement coming from the leader of a community that resents being marginalized and longs to enter the mainstream of French society. Left alone? Quite literally. Journalist Amir Taheri says that the Muslims in France are not actually interested in assimilation at all; rather, they want autonomy: “Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be reorganized on the basis of the ‘millet’ system of the Ottoman Empire: Each religious community (millet) would enjoy the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.” He reports that “in parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place.” Muslim leaders control the area and French officials, including police, simply do not enter.
• Postings on Muslim weblogs indicate that the riots are not spontaneous outpourings of rage, but carefully planned endeavors. Some revealed not only the planning involved in the riots, which have now swept all across France and have spread also to Denmark, Belgium and Germany, but also the Islamic supremacist goal behind them. One wrote: “The cops are petrified of us, everything must burn, starting Monday, the operation ‘Midnight Sun’ starts, tell everyone else, rendezvous for Momo and Abdul in Zone 4 ... jihad Islamia Allah Akhbar.” Another added: “You don’t really think that we’re going to stop now? Are you stupid? It will continue, non-stop. We aren’t going to let up. The French won’t do anything and soon, we will be in the majority here.”
Meanwhile, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, has issued a fatwa declaring: “It is formally forbidden to any Muslim seeking divine grace and satisfaction to participate in any action that blindly hits private or public property or could constitute an attack on someone’s life.” There is a strange ambiguity in this, recalling that of the CAIR-backed American fatwa condemning attacks on innocent civilians without defining “innocent”: what constitutes attacking “blindly”? Is a focused, targeted attack somehow acceptable?"
You must have realized by now that the Old MSM has become inept in its' reporting; and no better in scribing its' echoed opinions, often void of any substantiated facts.
The media grackles fly from tree to tree; smothering the intended silence within; which, I fear, might soon become more deafening.
"To make matters worse, the elaborate French welfare state -- government spending accounts for roughly half of GDP compared with 36% in the U.S...."
What is US % if we back out military spending?
"There were plenty of immigrants rioting in L.A. in 1992."
Really? How do you know?
1, how free speech and modernism is much superior to their closed society, and 2, Armed Americans won't put up for them pushing their closed society on us.
I already gave it to some chap in Nigeria, he took all my money out for fees but soon he will transfer millions to it.
Immigrants don't riot here because Americans are not squeamish about shooting people if they need to to protect themselves and their property.
About 17% of GNP.
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