So why aren't these despised, humiliated youths packing up in droves and headed back to Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco?
By Colin Randall in Paris
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 09/11/2005)
The French government yesterday pinned its hopes of ending nearly two weeks of rioting on a range of sweeping emergency powers allowing for curfews, house arrest and police raids without warrants.
President Jacques Chirac, who has been accused of indecision and lack of leadership, invoked a 50-year-old law dating from the Algerian war of independence in his belated gamble on a tough response to the unrest.
The emergency powers authorised in a crisis session of the cabinet took effect at midnight and were available to local officials to impose on the estates of Paris and provincial towns and cities where violence has flared.
In Amiens, the first city to make use of the powers, officials announced a curfew banning unaccompanied under 16-year-olds from the streets between 10pm and 6am. Orleans and Savigny-sur-Orge followed suit.
Opponents of the government reacted angrily, claiming that the initiative sent a "message of war" to young people in poor suburbs.
Nearly 6,000 vehicles have already been burnt But ministers and public opinion had been shocked by 12 successive nights of disorder, spreading from Parisian suburbs to almost every region.
Nearly 6,000 vehicles had already been set on fire by the time Mr Chirac sat down with his cabinet.
One man has died, scores of police officers and rescue workers have been hurt and police have made more than 1,500 arrests, including children as young as 11.
Police said yesterday that 1,173 vehicles had been destroyed in overnight arson attacks. Although the total was 200 down on the worst night of rioting so far, Sunday, the reduction was hardly enough to suggest that the trouble was about to end.
Last night trouble broke out when youths threw petrol bombs at police and set cars ablaze in Toulouse.
It happened just as Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and a hated figure among many immigrant families after calling troublemakers "scum", was due to meet police in the city.
He said that the use of the emergency law reflected the government's resolve to act with firmness.
Under the emergency powers, meetings can be banned, suspects can be excluded from defined areas and house arrest warrants can be ordered against anyone considered a threat to public order.
In parliament, Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, faced both cheers and boos as he defended the package. He gave MPs details of his plans to aid poorer districts with a series of measures designed to improve employment, education and housing.
Sounds like a win/win to me!
Ship them back to the desert. Let them try to burn sand and camels.
That kinda sums up the US-Franco relationship as well.
read later
This is exactly the sense of entitlement socialism creates.
"Look around you. This place is sh**, it's a dump. We have nothing here. There's nothing for us."
If these jackoffs don't like it, move back to north africa.
yeah well
...
let them eat cheese
To me what this whole thing seems like is just the attitude of the French simply biting them back hard in the arse for once instead of it being ignored like it usually is or "boycotted". Like the one kid says "we`ve had it up to here". You and me pal. Burn that freggin` toilet to the ground for all I care, let me know where I can donate some matches.
Lock them up in the Bastille or the Conciergerie but only until their appointment with the Guillotine.
Like, who doesn't hate France?
Everybody else in France and in the first world just waits around, goes on holiday and all these goodies just pop up out of nowhere!
It's not fair!
Enough talk about the Americans, let's talk about the Muslim riots.
Then G-O B-A-C-K T-O T-H-E C-O-U-N-T-R-Y T-H-A-T L-O-V-E-S Y-O-U.
Go back to your Muslim countries that have Muslim rules and Muslim values.
What the hell are you doing in Europe???
When I read the headline, I thought it was about the U.S..
That doesn't necessarily make them good people.
D'oh!
'We Hate France And France Hates Us'
And never the twain shall meet.