Posted on 11/28/2007 12:49:26 AM PST by Cincinna
Two years after France’s immigrant suburbs exploded in rage, the rituals and acts of resentment have reappeared with an eerie sameness: roving gangs clashing with riot police forces, the government appealing for calm, residents complaining that they are ignored.
And while the scale of the unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it, in some sense, more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police.
More than 100 officers have been wounded, several of them seriously, according to the police. Thirty were hit with buckshot and pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, Patrice Ribeiro, a police spokesman, said in a telephone interview. One of the officers lost an eye; another’s shoulder was shattered by gunfire.
It is legal to own a shotgun in France — — as long as the owner has a license — and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youths were procuring more weapons.
“This is a real guerrilla war,” Mr. Ribeiro told RTL radio, warning that the police, who have struggled to avoid excessive force, will not be fired upon indefinitely without responding.
The police have made more than 30 arrests but have been restrained in controlling the violence, using tear gas to disperse the bands of young people and firing paint balls to identify people for possible arrests later.
The prefecture of the police in the Val d’Oise area, where most of the violence has occurred, said Tuesday night that there were no reported injuries among civilians that could be linked to the police.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
FReeper BozPolitics reports on his excellent Blog:
http://frenchpolitique.blogspot.com/2007/11/racialle-going-on-criminel.html
Racialle going on Criminel
Prime Minister Francois Fillon, perhaps finding his first opportunity to step out of the shadow while his boss was returning from China, spoke forcefully against a second night of violent riots in the suburbs of Paris. Calling the riots “inadmissible, unacceptable, and intolerable” and those who fired on police “criminals”, he referred back to the accident that precipitated the crisis, saying that “in a democracy there is not vengeance, there is justice,” which sounds curiosly similar to the late Simon Wiesenthal’s memoir Justice Not Vengeance.
In any case, Fillon’s action will be short lived, for first thing tomorrow morning Sarkozy will visit a hospital in the area, followed by a meeting with the Socialist mayor of Villiers-le-Bel, another meeting on the security situation, and perhaps even a meeting with the families of the two men killed when their motorbike hit a police car.
The International Herald Tribune is running a story that compares these riots to those of 2005, and the social problems still unadressed. Things don’t sound good:
“From what our colleagues on the scene tell us, this is a situation that is a lot worse than what we saw in 2005,” Patrice Ribeiro, a police officer and senior union official, told RTL radio Tuesday. He added, “A line was crossed last night, that is to say, they used weapons, they used weapons and fired on the police. This is a real guerrilla war.”...
More than 80 police officers already have been wounded the clashes, several of them seriously, Ribeiro said later by telephone. Thirty of them were hit with pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, he added. It is legal to own a shotgun in France - as long as the owner has a license - and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youth were procuring more shotguns.
Shoot to kill.
I don’t know about his visiting the families. It sounds like appeasement in the sense that the authorities had done nothing wrong but rather had been viciously attacked themselves.
What do you think Cincinna? He stood tough on the strike and the folks backed him. I know you are a big fan. This is a big test for the Sarkman.
Regards
france police should set up snipers on rooftops in strategic positions and kill every one of the rioters they see handling a gun. i´shure soon the shootings at police would stop.
Slightly off topic: on another thread about these riots there were some comments about the problem being a refusal to learn French and assimilate. I wonder about the language factor and thought maybe you would have some insight or knowledge about this aspect. Do the people who reside in these suburbs know and use some degree of French, or do they only use some native language?
My guess is that whether they know French or not, these are not nor will ever be, Frenchmen.
I agree with your supposition.
If you shoot me one more time, I am going to be really, really angry, and you will risk a temporary reduction in some of your monthly welfare payments and rent subsidies.
Maybe it’s time for the police to return fire....
Islam at its finest, they only understand one thing and if France is to survive as France, Sarko has no choice but to crush them this time. Not just once but everytime they stick their head up, it will take resolve.
Uh oh, here comes terrorism in France by the Muslims.
Sarko just had his Reagan strike-busting win against the French transport unions - lets see if the 2007 Paris riots are his Grenada.
Just wait until the “yutes” show up next year with AK-47s and high grade plastic explosives....
Thanks for the ping/link. Thanks for the information at your blog BP.
ATTENTION MICE: THE CAT HAS RETURNED. PLAYTIME IS OVER. THAT IS ALL.
The French should announce that welfare payments to everybody who currently recieves them will continue to be paid, but they must be picked up on a weekly basis, in person, in the individual’s country of origin.
Why doesn’t the French Government just find out why they are so upset and give them land to make peace? </moonbat>
No language barrier when the “shotgun sings the song”. That song has a tendency to cause assimilation.
Thirty of them were hit with pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, he added
They make bullet wounds sound like bee stings.
I guess they do that so the muzzies shooting at them wont get real mad and start slinging insults.
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