'The definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.' - Ben Franklin
Posted on 03/24/2006 4:59:31 PM PST by Cornpone
Cars were torched and shops burnt in central Paris last night after the seventh big protest in eight days against the government's controversial employment law ended in clashes between hooded youths and riot police.
The youths, some of whom had come in from the suburbs, grouped on the pavements on the Esplanade des Invalides, one of Paris's main boulevards, and armed themselves with baseball bats, wooden sticks and metal bars.
As students and sixth formers moved towards the city centre chanting protests against the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, and the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, the armed youths began to snake up the side of the crowd. Covering their faces with tracksuit hoods and scarves, they moved fast in groups of 20 to 30. Several car windows had been smashed and a bus shelter destroyed.
Two hours later, when the protesters reached Les Invalides, hundreds of riot police had sealed off the entrances to streets leading to government ministries. Several groups of teenagers began smashing cars and shop windows. One shop was set alight and five cars were upturned and torched as riot police began pushing the protesters back.
De Villepin is now embattled on all fronts over his controversial "first employment contract", known as the CPE. Sarkozy has distanced himself this week, suggesting there should be a six-month trial period for the law, which would make it easier for employers to sack workers under 26. The government says such flexibility will encourage companies to hire young people and slash unemployment. The daily Le Parisien on Thursday quoted an unnamed political source close to the President, Jacques Chirac, saying that if the controversy did not subside De Villepin could be sacked.
Trade unions on Thursday agreed they would meet De Villepin for talks but it was unlikely they would call off a strike planned for next Tuesday. With transport and air workers already pledging support, the strike was being dubbed Black Tuesday by one French paper.
As the protests continued, pavements were littered with glass, parked cars had had all their windows put out, and benches had been ripped up to throw at police. One tourist took cellphone photos, saying it was a portrait of modern France.
A university student who had been at the protest and watched the violence erupt said: "It was both students and young people. But the police have arrested a hell of a lot of people who had nothing to do with it. They are fascists."
A town planning student, Viviane Macé, said: "Bands of young guys have been running past the protesters with baseball bats all afternoon. It is a small minority of people but I can totally understand what is going through their minds. They feel as desperate as we do and they have got no other way to express themselves. They feel violence is the only action to take. I think some people might not even know what the CPE is. It says a lot about our society that people feel the need to express themselves with bats and metal bars."
One woman who had come to protest from the Seine-Saint-Denis region, which experienced the worst of last autumn's youth riots, said: "There are now kids in the worst areas of the suburbs who are being born into families where the parents have never worked. It is desperate." - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
That sounds a lot like the liberal Mecca in the U.S.
are they still at it over there?
Between the muslims and these spoiled socialist french brats, Paris is soon going to resemble a Detroit ghetto.
It does. one would be tempted to think the welfare state and the victim mentality is a strategy for the ruin of a nation perpetrated by an enemy....
I've been fighting off thinking about the possibility of this anarchy spreading to the bored, discontented of this generation in places besides France...
"We will burn ze cars!"
"But zere ah none left!"
"Oh. Zen we....be really ah-nnoying and rude and zen run away and hide when we ah done!"
"We do zat anyway, mon ami."
"Oh. Zen it is ze business as usual, non?"
'The definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.' - Ben Franklin
Ever heard of a city named New Orleans?
NOLA is proud of their French heritage...
'Use your words' -- isn't that what we teach the Kindergartners?? But when you're a 'yute' then you get so frustrated you have to HIT??? I don't know ....
My heart bleeds for the French. We should send an emergency shipment of white flags to help them surrender to the barbarians in their midst.
Yes, it does - it says they expect to get away with it. I'm thinking a few property owners expressing themselves with 12-gauge shotguns might encourage the ones with bats to find another medium of communication.
For once the Muslims have a more righteous cause! Mark this day.
Apparently smashing up cars, brandishing baseball bats and fighting with the police is the French equivelent of our primary system, in that it helps select the next candidate for Prime Minister. A Prime Minister, from what I can tell is the equivelent of our Vice President. :-)
Ahhh yes, the civilized French culture...full of appreciation for the things in life we American barbarians cannot understand...
A day of W O R K means you E A R N a day of pay. A simple concept, oui?
The French are going to have to start making cars out of asbestos if this keeps up.
Eurabia Death Watch Update.
I read a while back that Paris had serious traffic & parking problems. Problem solved! :)
Detroit
Or. on the other hand, the best areas like the Hamptons, and the Rockefeller kids, the Kennedys, and so on...
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