Posted on 04/02/2006 6:08:56 AM PDT by MadIvan
THE images are unnerving: hooded, swift-footed youths infiltrating protest rallies in the heart of tourist Paris, smashing shop windows, setting cars on fire, beating and robbing passers-by and throwing objects at the riot police.
They are called the casseurs - the smashers. With more marches planned for this week as part of a continuing protest over a new jobs law, the casseurs are the volatile chemical that could ignite an even bigger crisis for the government than the impasse over the law itself.
They create primarily a law-and-order problem, evoking the rioting that gripped the troubled suburbs of French cities for weeks last autumn. Pumped up by news coverage, these youths boast of trying to steal mobile phones and money and vow to take revenge for the daily humiliation they say they endure from the police.
But the casseurs create an image problem as well, as striking television images and photographs of youths, some of them masked, and the police using tear gas and water cannons, give the impression of a Paris under siege. 'Don't Go to Paris,' read a headline in the Sun last week.
In live coverage of the mass protests in Paris, CNN compared the protests to the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising in Beijing. What worries the authorities now is that the targets of anger are shifting, moving beyond attacks on property to attacks on people as well.
"I am deeply worried because we are seeing an unleashing of violence by 2,000 to 3,000 thugs who come to smash and loot," said embattled interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. "My objective is to avoid mistakes by the police, so that people can protest in safety."
The police and independent analysts say that most of the vandalism and violence that has marred the protests has been by young men, largely immigrants or the children of immigrants, from tough, underprivileged suburbs, who roam in groups and have little else to keep them busy.
"In France, we always imagine violence to be political because of our revolutions, but this isn't the case," said Sebastian Roché, a political scientist who specialises in delinquency in the suburbs.
The casseurs are people who are apart from the political protests. Their movement is apolitical. It is about banal violence - thefts, muggings, aggression."
The casseur phenomenon is revisiting old and disturbing ground. During student protests in 1994 over a plan to cut the legal minimum wage for the young, hundreds of youths from the suburbs descended on Paris to attach themselves to peaceful protests and turn their rage against the police.
Many of those youths, identified as coming in from the poor suburbs, battled the police, burned cars and smashed store windows.
In one protest, nearly 50 policemen were injured in five hours of violence.
In another incident, a television cameraman was beaten and kicked so badly as he filmed a gang of casseurs that he suffered a fractured skull.
In the current protests, the technology of mobile phones makes it easier for the roving bands of youths to coordinate their actions and warn one another about police movements.
Some of the youths even share instant war trophies: photographs and short scenes of violence and vandalism they have captured on their mobile phones.
The police have so far been using restraint, trying to avoid what is called the Malik Oussekine syndrome. Malik Oussekine was a 22-year-old student protester who died after being beaten by the police during a mass demonstration in 1986 to protest a proposal to give universities more autonomy in student selection.
President Jacques Chirac, who was prime minister at the time, withdrew the initiative; the education minister was forced to resign.
Anyone have any spare handbaskets we can send them?
Now we know why Al-Qaeda really doesn`t attack France...They don`t have to, they attack themselves.
A friend of mine went with his 12 year old daughter to France a few years ago and said he was totally disgusted, and will never go back again. He said a few times he almost got in a fight as the French men wouldn`t stop leering or whistling at his daughter. Real nice, making passes at a 12 years old. And his daughter looks 12 not 18.
Thanks for the great posts.
"CNN compares the riots to the Tienemen Square student protest..."
What the hell is wrong with CNN? They compare the rioters' cowardly, nearly anarchic exploitation of freedom in France to the heartbreaking courage of the Chinese students who silently petitioned for an easing of government oppression.
Are they simply too stupid to see the difference, or what?
i.e., Mu-slimes.
Excellent idea Pepe La Pew!
Allow less than five thousand people destroy the lives of ten and a half million because you haven't the stomach for forcefully halting civil obedience.
Rather like Washington and the hoards crossing our borders, don't you think?
Even the weak kneed French will have enough and two things will happen: Interior Minister Sarkozy will unleash the CRS riot troops to put down the riots by force and the ultra nationalist Jean Marie Le Pen will become Predident in the next election.
The youth of France don't like the law because it says they will work for up to 2 years before getting fired. They don't like it because it sasy they will work!!!
heh, heh, heh, heh, heh!
Searching Yahoo! images, "hooded youths."
http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?p=hooded+youths&sm=Yahoo%21+Search&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&c=news_photos
Nice,I'd have to rebarrel all my weapons after an afternoon in Paris.
Can't have them being called any nasty names, now, so we'll just let them sit back and watch.
Think about these words for a few minutes.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, Stupidite.
Leni
Or what!
Oh man, don`t even get me started on that game. When it first came out in the `90`s it was like video crack, I couldn`t stop playing it.
"French men wouldn`t stop leering or whistling at his daughter" - in that case might want to avoid Italy as well.
"You have to keep in mind that France is our Mexico." - Having no borders in the EU is looking really good right now.
"Are they simply too stupid to see the difference, or what?"
No. But they think WE are.
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