Paris 'smashers' shift attacks from property to people

Scotland on Sunday ^ | April 2, 2006 | RUTH FREMSON

[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.

[VOA]

I hope your European stay is safe and happy.
But here's the place to check early and often (as you probably already know).

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html

Interesting to see how many places can't seem to be pacified by The Religion of Peace,
especially The Philippines (Abu Sayyef alert).

[Earthdweller]

"....hope this is all calmed down BEFORE we go over there!!!!"

I will be seeing the current Paree in the AM. I will give you a report.

[Pepper777]

"" 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. ""

"" i.e.,Mu-slimes. ""

Why didn't they just use your one word description, instead of hiding the truth? CNN, as was pointed out, is so full of BS concerning these riots. Sadly most of the world gets it's propaganda, I mean news, from CNN.