Paris seeks "hidden hands" in riots, locals unsure

Reuters ^ | 05 November 2005 | Tom Heneghan

[Lorianne]

AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France (Reuters) - With every night that France's rundown suburbs burn, officials grow increasingly convinced that drug traffickers and Islamist militants are using frustrated youths to challenge law and order here.

Many people who watch their cars, shops and schools go up in flames, however, are not buying it. They blame unemployment, racial prejudice and widespread youth boredom for the outbursts.

Finding "hidden hands" behind the unrest seems like trying to catch the rioters as they rampage through the night. Some may get caught, but far more slip away in the darkness.

"Everybody is fed up seeing our town and our district trampled over daily by these organised gangs," declared Gerard Gaudron, conservative mayor of the northeastern Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois after an hour-long march against violence.

If the police don't crack down on these "hooligans," the embattled Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has warned, "who would give the orders? The mafias and the fundamentalists."

Fouzi Guendouz doesn't agree. "I don't think that's the real reason. It was just an excuse for kids to trash things," said Guendouz, 20, a French-born business student of Algerian origin.

"The politicians blame it on Islamists because the French are afraid of this religion. They think Islam equals bin Laden."

"Whoever knows who's behind this should come here and say it openly," shouted a defiant man in a Muslim prayer cap. "The problem is there's nothing for youths to do here."

Ahmed Hamidi, a white-bearded Moroccan electrician long resident in France, had no patience with politicians in Paris, which lies hardly an hour away but seems like another planet.

"All the politicians care about are laws for homosexuals and all those immoral things," he fumed. "They are against headscarves, against beards and against the mosques.

THEORY VERSUS REALITY?

Aulnay-sous-Bois was calm overnight, but there were still many charred cars and delivery vans along the way as the "march against violence" snaked in between the faded housing blocks.

Acrid smoke still rose from the smouldering ruins of a large carpet and floor covering depot set ablaze by arsonists two days ago. Deep in an isolated industrial zone, the depot was clearly the target of arsonists who went out of their way to hit it.

The growing frequency of attacks like this, in contrast to the car and trash hopper blazes set by marauding youths earlier in the unrest, prompted Paris prosecutor Yves Bot to join the officials blaming the rioting on organised gangs.

"This is done in a way that gives every appearance of being coordinated," he told Europe 1 radio. "For the moment, we see there is a movement against official institutions but it does not seem to be taking an ethnic or religious turn."

Another student in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Jeremie Garrigues, 19, doubted this was the case. "If those kids had been organised, they would have done much worse -- they would have used guns and bombs against town hall and the prefecture," he argued.

"Those are all politicians' theories," remarked an Algerian woman named Samia, whose main concern was how frightened her children were by the unrest. "We live here in reality."

NICE CARS AND EXPENSIVE PHONES

It's only on the fringes of the march, out of earshot of the multi-cultural crowd of concerned residents, that anybody tries to reconcile the opposing explanations.

"I'm sure there are drug dealers and Islamic radicals at work," said a middle-aged woman who requested anonymity. "Drugs are everywhere. They've arrested Islamic radicals nearby here."

A social worker who also withheld his name said some rioters seemed linked to the drug trade because they "drive nice cars and use mobile telephones I couldn't afford to buy.

"When the government is determined to fight this underground economy, there's bound to be resistance," he said. "There is no headquarters organising this, but they seem to be coordinating their activities among themselves by phone."

The charge that Islamist radicals were trying to exploit the unrest was a difficult one for local Muslims to handle, he said, because many were working to prevent unrest and admitting there were radicals in the crowds would discredit their community.

"They can't say that, so they don't say anything," he added.

[pawdoggie]

how do you wpell conspiracy???? all active accross 273 towns??? all organ ized and structured muslim uprising, nothing more. ask belgium, ask the netherlands who simultaneously had a problem

Excellent point. And in Germany, too, as I understand it. Hard to blame alledged French racism and lack of upward mobility for that.

[ansel12]

"As amazing as it seems to Americans, France may be the first to awaken in this battle (not Chirac or de Villepin...but that minority that maintains the drops of blood holding French courage). Just because the leaders are cowards is no reason to forget the strength of Enguerrand de Coucy and men like him. "

"vive le 13e regiment"

[highlander_UW]

I sure hope France's WMD's are well protected.

[modest proposal]

i bet if a bunch of americans went to france and got bored and torched some cars there would be a differnet reaction ...

[backhoe]

Is Paris Burning? ( Religion of Peace® Alert )
Click the picture:

Islam, The Alleged Religion of Peace® ( TARP™ )? Click this picture:

No, I am not exaggerating. Click the pic, go to "last," and read backwards.
If you are not informed about this stuff, you will be made sick. If you are informed, you will be made mad, all over again.

---

Then, there is this little problem...

For "Thunder on the Border," click the picture:

---

Kindly note tagline:

Is Paris Burning? ( Religion of Peace® Alert )
Click the picture:

Islam, The Alleged Religion of Peace® ( TARP™ )? Click this picture:

No, I am not exaggerating. Click the pic, go to "last," and read backwards.
If you are not informed about this stuff, you will be made sick. If you are informed, you will be made mad, all over again.

---

Then, there is this little problem...

For "Thunder on the Border," click the picture:

---

Kindly note tagline:

[Fred Nerks]

[Nextrush]

In the last presidential election Chirac attacked LePen as
a threat to the "humanistic values" of France. For 200
"glorious" years or more France has been a "secular" state.
The Muslim man's comments that the government cares more
about homosexuals reminded me of the fact that France is a
truly "godless" state. They P.O.ed the Muslims by banning
girls from wearing Muslim clothing in public schools. Abandoning God has consequences and this is the latest one for France. Did Pat Robertson have anything to say about this? LOL.

[cgbg]

how this could possibly benefit drug traffickers. Seriously. If somebody can figure that angle I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

If they are unaffiliated and just in it for the money the media analysis makes no sense at all.

If, however, they are using proceeds to support a Muslim takeover of France then their involvement is both central and, of course, misrepresented by the media.

[livius]

I never thought I'd find myself defending drug dealers, but I also fail to see how they would benefit from encouraging riots all over France.

Many of the people involved probably are drug dealers, since that's a fairly common occupation in those neighborhoods. But why would the higher-level drug dealers or suppliers want to encourage a situation that would drive away their business, disrupt their supply chain, and even destroy some of their merchandise?

No, I'm afraid there's only one thing responsible for these riots - in fact, not only the riots, but the miserable social and economic conditions of the neighborhoods even prior to the riots. And it's not "drug dealers."

[samtheman]

The hidden hand of:

[samtheman]

Hard to blame alledged French racism and lack of upward mobility

If you use the words of the media, then you are right. But if you use a more correct phraseology --- socialism --- then it's not so hard to see how society is to blame.

Read this: The French way implodes

[NickatNite2003]

More like:

"Morte La France"

[samtheman]

Does anyone here in FR who doubts that the construction of a Socialist Republic results in a hell-hole? And who first is going to experience the hellishlack of opportunity that socialism represents? Newcomers. Those not locked into the public trough, the way other segments of society are.

Is there anyone in FR who doubts that the education system in a socialist country is going to completely suppress any discussion of free enterprise and job creation in the entire education process?

So we are left with a bunch of outsiders, who don't even have the correct vocabulary for understanding the problem, locked in a prison of socialism. They happen to be Islamics, yes. So that's the vocabulary they use.

Meanwhile, if they were here in the US (and I'm not saying they should be, I am against letting Moslems into the US), they would be working. They would have jobs.

When large groups of people are trapped without jobs or hope of jobs in a socialist system, and they're surrouned by the sight of the public trough workers in their fine automobiles ever day...

Hey, I'm not defending what they did. But for us to scream "Moslems" and ignore the real cause here, is opening ourselves up to the same thing.

The US is also a Socialist Republic, just not as far gone as the French one is. It's time for us to wake up and smell the Marxism. That's the real evil here. That's what we should be confronting.

[livius]

LOL! I think you're right - socialism was certainly a contributing factor. That's the thing that the riots in US black ghettos had in common with the French riots. They took place among people who had been rendered completely dependent by socialism, and whose sense of grievance had been honed by Marxist rhetoric, substituting "race" for "class," and making them see the situation as hopeless and violence as inevitable.

However, the difference is that race by itself cannot be an ideology, and there's really not enough intellectual motivation to keep violence going for any sustained period of time. Once the thrill is gone or the goodies have been gotten and there's nothing left to loot, it's over.

Islam, on the other hand, has a perpetual sense of grievance because it is such an authoritarian, intellectually stifling, fatalistic creed that its adherents are incapable of human progress - and Islam encourages them to blame others for what is a fundamental failure in their world view, constructed by that same Islam. Since they have no way of improving their own situation, they simmer with constant resentment and wish to destroy what they cannot build. They feel they are being cheated of what should rightfully be theirs, and Islam tells them - and has since its beginnings with the bandit-leader Mohammed - that they should be able to take it by force and destroy anything that stands in their way.

[samtheman]

Islam, on the other hand, has a perpetual sense of grievance because it is such an authoritarian, intellectually stifling, fatalistic creed that its adherents are incapable of human progress - and Islam encourages them to blame others for what is a fundamental failure in their world view, constructed by that same Islam.

The only thing wrong with your analysis is that I have absolute experience of the opposite. I work in NY, in IT, and many of my coworkers are Muslims (from South Asia, not Arabs, that's true), who are as hard working, as family-oriented, as mortgage-conscious, and as tech-savy as anybody else I work with. I know that Islam is bad. Especially among the Arabs. But if people are offered jobs and opportunities it changes them. If we lose sight of that, then what's the point of promoting capitalism and free enterprise?

Our president believes that giving people a choice of an open society is always a good thing to do. I believe that too.

Islam is a sick religion, no doubt about it. But the far far greater evil is Socialism.

[livius]

I think there are or used to be many "cultural Muslims" who see their religion mostly as family holidays, etc. and can happily adapt to the Western model of society and life. However, Islamic societies are without exception backwards and economic mobility is impossible. This has always been the case, and Islamic countries have only progressed to the extent that more Westernized leaders among them have been able to diminish the influence of Islam.

But historically, radical (or actually, orthodox) Islam comes back again and again and overwhelms less fanatically Islamic cultures. This has occurred on a regular basis throughout the history of Islam, and I think we're seeing it happening in this latest round of Islamism. And socialism is a seriously complicating factor that makes it much more dangerous to non-Muslim societies.

[KeyWest]

So, Akmed, what is behind the riots?

The problem with what is going on is you can call it poverty, drugs or whatever, but the rioters are only muslim, the call is out to create terror during ramaden, and it is not confined to France.

It is muslim. The rest is cover for the apologists. Just remember, there is a lot of mid-east oil money in the news business. Plus we know it was being fed to leaders in the French government.

[Caipirabob]

It will be an islamic country within 30 years.

In all honesty, I never counted on all hell breaking out this fast. I think it may be much sooner than we imagine.

[Caipirabob]

I'm afraid it's "vive la France".

Shortly to be translated as:

[joshhiggins]

I suspect what they really mean is that they are looking for the "hidden hands of Bush and Rove".

How long until they tell us they have found them?