Posted on 11/15/2005 5:14:22 AM PST by conservativecorner
Jacques Chirac finally addressed the French people about the riots that have extended into their 19th evening. Looking wan and tired, Chirac gave a speech with a familiar ring to it, at least among those Americans who have not blocked the memory of the Jimmy Carter era like the trauma that it was:
President Jacques Chirac, addressing his country for the first time since unrest broke out, said that he had asked Parliament to extend a national state of emergency to February and that he would set up a program that would provide jobs and training for 50,000 youths by 2007.
The president, stressing respect for the law and the need to recognize the diversity of French society, acknowledged that the past two weeks had been proof of a "profound malaise" in the country, calling it a "crisis of identity."
That, of course, recalls the infamous "malaise" speech by Carter, when he told Americans that we would have to learn to get by with less, and that mandatory energy rationing would be the New Patriotic Way. Like Carter, Chirac has taken a real problem and used it to cover for a more serious problem -- and the solution Chirac proposes will make the situation even worse than before.
Even if one accepts that the uprising in France has little to do with Islamists and mostly concerns the massive unemployment in the immigrant community, the Chirac government offers little more than a Band-Aid for a solution. Instead of setting the economic conditions that will create real jobs, Chirac proposes a domestic Peace Corps -- a civil service that might pay minimum wage and add in food stamps and housing assistance. France also plans on offering job training, and says it will have 50,000 "youths" in such training by 2007.
Fifty thousand youths, out of a total immigrant population of 5 million people, in an economy that already has double-digit unemployment: no wonder malaise has struck France. The government they elected cannot even do math.
How does Chirac and his cohorts figure on paying for this new civil corps and training program? They will pull even more resources out of the private sector, which will decrease the working capital that might allow some critically-needed job creation. Chirac will only wind up extending their addiction to government intervention in their lives, in order to offer a benefit that even if all plans go on schedule will only service one percent of the population. In the meantime, the crushing weight of the French social model will get larger and make an economic recovery even more remote for the nation.
When Carter gave his "malaise" speech to Americans, we recognized that his time had passed and we needed a new direction in the White House -- and we weren't even watching a nationwide riot burning into its third week. If history gives any guidance, the French will mostly either agree with Chirac or object that his solutions are not socialistic enough to solve the problem. France appears completely lost, even apart from the radical Islamism that seeks its destruction.
Plan by jacque chirac for peace in our time:
1) Give all the "yutes" sweaters
2) Instead of government "jobs" increase welfare checks
3) Burqas required for all wimmen, including the whores
4) islam to become the official religion on france
5) 500 peugots to be provided {each night} for burning
Here's Neal's take:
THE HEAD WEASEL SPEAKS
French President and preeminent Euro-weenie Jacques Chirac gave a public address yesterday in which he proposed solutions for the Muslim riots in France. His action plan read like the blueprints of the failed policies of liberalism in the United States over the last 40 years. Among his ideas:
Le Grande Grenouille called the riots a sign of a "profound malaise" and said it was time to reach out to the rioters. Yeah...that'll work. We tried to "reach out" to Islamic terrorists for decades, and there are 3,000 people who paid the ultimate price for that policy on 9/11/01. Good luck.
Chirac said discrimination should be eliminated, but not through quotas. Sound familiar? It should, because it's the same tripe the left has been peddling in this country for years. The result will be "programs to encourage diversity." In France they call that "positive discrimination." The idea is to introduce what we know as affirmative action programs for the children of third-world immigrants. This is what you call rewarding bad behavior. This is also what you call a surrender ... and this, as we all know, is the French way.
And so now France is going to learn the hard way what we have learned: you don't negotiate with terrorists. They're going to try and feel the pain of the rioters who have been rampaging their country for weeks...by reaching out to them and offering more handouts.
We'll see how many cars the Islamic rioters burn in return.
Give more money to the losers and the problem will go away. Typical rat party solution.
Pooooor Jacques. He hasn't quite realized that France's "National Razor" has changed from the Guillotine to the Islamic Khanjar Dagger.
National Police service chief Michel Gaudin told Le Monde newspaper that 80 percent of those arrested for rioting were already known to police.
In future, more officers would have to work at night when troublemakers were most active, he said.
The French told God to take a hike, he was not wanted long ago.
They are on their own now.
They got into this mess by themselves, they can get out of it by themselves. Or they are way up the proverable creek in a leaking canoe without a paddle.
My personal feeling is that it could not have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.
ROFLMAO! Ya you might want to put some feet on the ground at night. These people are clueless, and they were occupied within the last 75 years.
yep! the old liberal - "lets throw money at the problem" tactic.
Yeh--words failed me. Upside is that 2 French guys have scratched up enough cash to buy a clue.
Probably were all Renaults. I'd be inclined to set a few on fire myself. I'm ashamed to admit I drove one back in the 80's and it was the worst piece of junk I've ever driven.
And I thought that Chirac was the leader of the "conservative" party in France?
When their centre-right is to the left of Jimmy Carter, it's not hard to understand why they are in this plight. The wonder is, why did it take so long?
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