French rail at foreign 'beat-up' (The French are unhappy about intl. ridicule)

THE French have had enough of the riots that are sullying their international reputation as the land of civility, as well as liberty, equality and fraternity.

By the end of last week, there was a collective sense of relief as the nightly toll of burnt cars, and torched schools, nurseries, gyms, warehouses and small businesses rapidly diminished.

A few hundred - as opposed to well over a thousand - incinerated cars and a significant drop in violence in the troubled suburbs of Paris signalled for most French citizens a welcome break from the fortnight of violence that had threatened the whole concept of law and order in the republic.

With the imposition of an unprecedented state of emergency authorising local authorities to slap curfews on unruly young people, hopes grew that the untamed youth of the suburbs would quietly return to their housing estates.

Many commentators on French television and the major newspapers whined about the gross exaggerations of the riots in the foreign media.

"This is not Chechnya," one angry resident of Clichy-sous-Bois, the isolated Paris immigrant suburb where the rioting began two weeks ago, angrily told The Australian at a memorial rally for the town's gym, burned down the evening before by a gleeful mob of pyromaniacs.

But over the weekend the rioting did not abate. Indeed, for the first time since the violence exploded on October 27 after two teenage boys were electrocuted in Clichy-sous-Bois -- the pair took refuge in a power substation believing they were being chased by police -- the crisis spread to a major city centre.

Rioters struck at the heart of Lyon, considered France's second-most important town, at 5pm on Saturday. About 50 youths descended on Bellecour Square -- the Lyon landmark beloved by locals and tourists -- a few hours before the authorities were due to impose a curfew banning unaccompanied youngsters from the streets of the city after dark.

The brazen attack frightened shoppers and local business people, who quickly closed their enterprises before riot police restored a semblance of order. Two people were arrested and investigations are continuing.

A few dozen cars were torched in central Paris a week earlier, but the menacing presence of a large gang of rioters had not been experienced in a major French urban centre since the civil unrest broke out.

Paris had been on edge throughout the Armistice Day long weekend after reportedly credible threats to capital landmarks like the Champs Elysee, home to the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower were discovered on websites and through intercepted text messages.

The threats were not acted upon -- probably because of the overwhelming police presence in central Paris and a concerted public campaign by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The tough-talking presidential aspirant promised to impose the full force of republican law on any young agitators who dared take out their rage on the symbols of French glory and in full view of the foreign tourists.

Despite the relative calm in Paris, unrest continued in the provinces. Toulouse -- a hotspot in the south of France -- again experienced a night of ritual car burnings.

In Carpentras, locals were still digesting the disturbing news that a local mosque had been attacked -- presumably by far-right militants capitalising on the incendiary social situation.

The French appear shocked that the eyes of the world are turned to their nation in crisis. They are a proud people who are more accustomed to being being admired for their country's world-class cuisine, intellectual heritage and enviable lifestyle.

The official spokesman of the centre-right Government, Jean-Francois Cope, has called a special meeting today with all international correspondents working in France.

He wants to counteract the alarming global dissemination of the view that France is in flames -- and therefore a dangerous tourist destination.

Or as Le Figaro newspaper reported: "Since the beginning of the crisis, European and foreign television networks and newspapers have had the tendency to present the country as if it is in a quasi state of war."

The problem with Cope's argument is that it is the French press, political elite and commentariat who have raised the spectre of "the germs of civil war". Or, as Ivan Riouful argued in Le Figaro on Friday, the rioters are committing acts of "urban terrorism".

The so-called Paris intifada is not an invention of a gloating foreign press corps, thrilled that France with its deep sense of cultural superiority is getting its comeuppance.

The images of the nightly violence speak for themselves -- and the weekend's attack in central Lyon shows the country's worst case of civil unrest since World War II, or at least May 1968, is not over yet.

I summarized a lot of the French reporting on Katrina on my blog:

The lefty French paper Libération joined in eagerly: "Each catastrophe ... instantly expose[s] the society that it strikes [prophetic words!], and Katrina is no exception to this rule...."Nice and dry in his mountain range...[Osama bin] Laden must be dying of laughter [as] the American civil-security helicopters make like ducks along the Mississippi." Another Liberation writer, Philippe Gangereau, used the opportunity to attack the American president: "Bush is completely out of his depth in this disaster. Katrina has revealed America's weaknesses: its racial divisions, the poverty of those left behind by its society, and especially its president's lack of leadership." A different Liberation writer, Gerard Dupuy

accused the Bush administration of "contempt for victims who without a doubt were doubly at fault for being both poor and black." He concluded that the neoconservative "crusade," which was "already mired in the Mesopotamian marshes" of Iraq, had "foundered in the Louisiana bayou."

The "conservative" Le Figaro was little different: à cette occasion, l'Amérique découvre ou redécouvre qu'elle abrite le tiers-monde en son sein ("on this occasion, America discovers or rediscovers that it shelters the Third World in its centre.") Jean-Pierre Aussant: "This tragic incident reminds us that the United States has refused to ratify the Kyoto accords. Let's hope the US can from now on stop ignoring the rest of the world. If you want to run things, you must first lead by example. Arrogance is never a good adviser!"

There was also a Le Figaro interview with one Emanuel Todd, "a research engineer at the National Institute of Demographic Studies, historian, author of Après l'empire [After the Empire], published by Gallimard in 2002 - an essay in which he predicted the "breakdown" of the American system." According to Todd, Katrina was yet another signpost on the road to America's upcoming Soviet-style collapse:

Q: You postulate that the management of Katrina reveals a worrying territorial fragmentation joined to the carelessness of the military apparatus. What must we then fear for the future?

A: The hypothesis of decline developed in Après l'empire evokes the possibility of a simple return of the United States to normal, certainly associated with a 15-20% decrease in the standard of living, but guaranteeing the population a level of consumption and power "standard" in the developed world. I was only attacking the myth of hyper-power. Today, I am afraid I was too optimistic. The United States' inability to respond to industrial competition, their heavy deficit in high-technology goods, the upturn in infant mortality rates, the military apparatus' desuetude and practical ineffectiveness, the elites' persistent negligence incite me to consider the possibility in the medium term of a real Soviet-style crisis in the United States

....The gang of black unemployed who loot a supermarket and the group of oligarchs who try to organize the "heist" of the century of Iraq's hydrocarbon reserves have a common principle of action: predation. The dysfunctions in New Orleans reflect certain central elements of present American culture.

The lefty magazine Marianne gleefully announced: "The American giant folds beneath the weight of its failures and struggles to enforce an order that it wanted to impose on the world."

Agence France-Presse solemnly quoted a taunting Die Zeit ">editorial: "[Katrina weakens America's] image of itself as a nation which is the avenger and protector of the defenseless, the nation that brings order, democracy and prosperity. Today, it must beg for beds and blankets from foreigners." In the same article, it quotes French author Nicole Bachran:

"Sept. 11 put the spotlight on America's vulnerability, just as Hurricane Katrina has in another way. It showed that the country is not that strong or effective."

Do you request others to shut up while speaking up yourself at every possible occasion?
- Do you ask others to respect agreements while systematically flaunting them yourself?
- Do you think Hitler was bad but Napoleon was good?
- Do you think De Gaulle liberated France?
- Do you vote for corrupt thieves and/or liars?
- Are you proud when companies from your country buy businesses abroad but you are opposed to the sale of your national companies to foreigners?
- Do you think a nation with a GDP 4 times less than yours should financially contribute more to the EU than your own country?
- Have you ever heard of Jacques Attali?
- Do you think 2 weeks of rioting and thousands of cars burnt, not mentioning schools etc., constitute "some isolated incidents"?
- Do you call Iraq an invasion and Ivory Coast a peacekeeping mission?
- Do you think healthcare and education are free because you never received a detailed bill with those items on them?
- Do you think Chirac and Sarkozy are right-wing politicians?
- Can you name two people who made poetry about seagulls?
- Do you think the UN should have more power and responsibilities?
- Do you approve of a commission deciding what words you may use and which ones should be excluded from your language?
- Do you think mimolette is a Dutch cheese?
- Is Total-Elf just a normal oil company in your opinion?
- Is Strasbourg the capital of the EU?
- Did Lance Armstrong dope himself?

If you answered "yes" to one question, you are possibly French.
If you answered "yes" to two questions, you are probably French.
If you answered "yes" to three questions or more, you are almost certainly French.

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