I've got to admit, I lived in France for about 9 months- half of that I lived in Paris. I never had the first problem with crime- but then, I'm not an idiot either. While we were searching for a flat sometimes we'd emerge from the Metro station and survey the neighborhood the flat was in and just turn around and hop back on the train. We lived in the 12th. Didn't seem to be that many immigrants there.
But it's true, if you get on the RER and ride to the outlying areas of Paris, it's a whole different world. It's kind of the reverse of a lot of American cities. The affluent people are in the city center itself and the "burbs" are populated by the underclass. But in Paris central as long as you avoid certain areas (Like Bois de Vincennes and Bois de Bologne after dark) and certain Metro stations, it's safe enough- for a city its size.
Like another poster mentioned though and the author himself touched on in the article- when that underclass decides to get on the Metro/RER and storm the city- the elites will have no place to go.
I think the wife and I are going to have to hop on a train and take a trip through the Chunnel and go see what's up for ourselves. I never had any desire to go see these cite areas- but the author has piqued my curiosity.
Thanks for posting this- good stuff.
APARTHEID. And the enervated froggys and other Euro lefties have the nerve to call Israel an apartheid nation?
My favorite from this essay:
One rap group, the Ministère amer (Bitter Ministry), won special official praise. Its best-known lyric: “Another woman takes her beating./ This time she’s called Brigitte./ She’s the wife of a cop./ The novices of vice piss on the police./ It’s not just a firework, scratch the clitoris./ Brigitte the cop’s wife likes niggers./ She’s hot, hot in her pants.” This vile rubbish receives accolades for its supposed authenticity: for in the multiculturalist’s mental world, in which the savages are forever noble, there is no criterion by which to distinguish high art from low trash. And if intellectuals, highly trained in the Western tradition, are prepared to praise such degraded and brutal pornography, it is hardly surprising that those who are not so trained come to the conclusion that there cannot be anything of value in that tradition. Cowardly multiculturalism thus makes itself the handmaiden of anti-Western extremism.