Posted on 11/28/2007 5:15:20 AM PST by jdm
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has a track record for dealing harshly with rioters, and he issued a warning to those stoking the latest round of antisocial violence. France will not approach these people as political activists, but as murderers who simply haven't yet found success:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to bring to justice rioters who shot at police in Paris in urban unrest that followed the death of two youths.
Mr Sarkozy, visiting policemen injured in the riots, said such shootings could not be tolerated. ...
Mr Sarkozy touched down from a state visit to China on Wednesday morning and headed straight to a hospital in Eaubonne, northern Paris, to visit some of the 120 officers injured in the rioting.
Afterwards he said: "Opening fire at officials is completely unacceptable... [this] has a name - attempted murder... Those who take it into their hands to shoot at officials will find themselves in court. It is not something that we can tolerate, no matter how dramatic the deaths of these two youngsters on a motorbike may be."
Part of the problem stems from the strange tolerance that the French have for riots in the first place. If they accept the burning of dozens of cars a night, then that becomes a baseline for later protests; anything that happens created an imperative for escalation. In this case, the attacks have targeted the police for their supposed role in the death of two Muslim teenagers who drove recklessly on a moped, without helmets.
If Sarkozy wants an end to these kinds of riots, then he needs to emulate Rudy Giuliani in a zero-tolerance enforcement strategy. He needs more police on the streets of the banlieus, arresting people who flaunt the law. It will take a while for the point to get made, and it will likely provoke a rise in short-term violence. Re-establishing law and order is a must, though, if Sarkozy wants to protect policemen and the French citizenry in the long term.
Unlike previous French administrations, Sarkozy has the will to act on this if he chooses. If he can regain control of these areas and end the perpetual pity-party riots, Sarkozy will establish that French law rules in France, and not the car-burners.
Two kids die and now there's 120 policemen in the hospital? These thugs are just looking for an excuse to act like savages.
Excuses are not needed for things that came natural.
M Sarkozy, how about using live ammunition from now on?
And it is being reported that these rioters are taking orders from their ‘elders’. Who are these ‘elders’?
Sarkozy is a good man by French standards, and perhaps the fault lies with a statist-minded reporter, who neglected to publish a full quote, but it would have been good if besides “shoot[ing] at officials”, burning and smashing other people’s property had been classed as unacceptable.
Time for the French army to be sent in and rioters to be sent out (as in back to Algeria).
while your at it, create a muslim nation. Send all muslims living in France to that land, preferably a damned river valley.
oops, did I say that? where did that come from?
al-Qaeda?
I understand. All I’m saying is that we have thugs like that here in the U.S., but people here know that if they set cars on fire and shoot at police officers, that they’re probably going to be arrested and put in jail for a very long time.
If French law doesn’t have any consequences for this sort of barbaric unrest and violence, then it makes sense why these thugs just continue, with no fear of what may happen to THEM.
“while your at it, create a muslim nation. Send all muslims living in France to that land, preferably”.........
Devil’s Island?
Now, now. Please remember that the roiters are members of the religion of peace and love. As in, they love to burn and destroy other peoples property and tear things to pieces.
GO, SARKOZY, GO!
Not the approach I was hoping for.
Devil's Island:
The rocky, palm-covered island is 40 meters (131 ft) high. The penitentiary was first opened by Emperor Napoleon III's government in 1852, and became one of the most infamous prisons in history. In addition to the prisons on all three islands, prison facilities were located on the mainland at Kourou. Over time, they became known collectively as "Devil's Island" in the English-speaking world, while they are known in France as the bagne de Cayenne, Cayenne being the main city of French Guiana.
Used by France from 1852 to 1946, the inmates were everything from political prisoners (such as anarchist Clément Duval) to the most hardened of thieves and murderers. A great many of the more than 80,000 prisoners sent to the harsh conditions at disease-infested Devil's Island were never seen again. Other than by boat, the only way out was through a dense jungle; accordingly, very few convicts ever managed to escape.
[snip] The horrors of the penal settlement became notorious in 1895 with the publicity surrounding the plight of the Jewish French army captain Alfred Dreyfus who had been wrongfully convicted of treason and was sent there on January 5
This is Sarkozy’s “Air Traffic Controllers Strike” moment.
" ... a whiff of grapeshot..."
The answer is on the island of Corsica.
Ya know, the best way to send the message is to machine gun the rioters until they stop rioting.
By French standards? Shoot, I wish we had a Sarkozy running for President.
Pull the trigger, Nick.
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