Posted on 11/07/2005 2:44:49 AM PST by Dane
French police made 395 arrests last night as riots intensified for the 11th consecutive night, with violence and fire engulfing towns from the North to the Mediterranean.
In the impoverished suburbs and satellite towns around Paris, where the unrest began on October 27, churches, schools and warehouses were set alight. At least 1,408 vehicles were destroyed, many more than on previous nights, and the random attacks have spread into the heart of the city.
In Grigny, south of the capital, a gang of around 200 youths are reported to have lured police into a housing estate before opening fire with hunting rifles. At least 30 officers were injured, two seriously with lead pellets in the legs and neck.
Riots broke out in beacons of disaffection across the country from Lille, on the border with Belgium, to Montpellier on the Mediterranean coast. In Toulouse, police used tear gas to disperse a mob. Cars were set alight on the streets of Nantes, Orleans, Rennes and Rouen, and youths in St Etienne forced passengers off a bus before burning it. Churches were set ablaze in northern Lens and southern Sete.
SNIP
In Strasbourg, youths stole a car and rammed it into a housing project, setting the vehicle and the building on fire. "We’ll stop when Sarkozy steps down," the defiant 17-year-old driver told an Associated Press reporter.
Police are calling for a night-time curfew in affected areas and some senior officers have demanded that troops are brought on to the streets.
Michel Gaudin, France's most senior police officer, said today: "We are witnessing a sort of shock wave that is spreading across the country."
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
"Would a normal French riot last for so long, cause so much destruction of property, and spread across the countryside? What about the 61 year old man who died, or the handicapped woman who was burned, or the 13 month old child who was injured?"
Every few years in France the government oversteps its bounds and a strike erupts. It generally starts in one sector, either students, or train-drivers, farmers or truckers or teachers. If the issue is one about which many people are annoyed at the government, the strike generalizes and becomes a general strike of millions, all across the countryside. Commerce is paralyzed, roads are blocked. The government always folds. No government can stand against a general strike of its people. Sometimes, Chirac's government has attempted to "tough it out". People become frustrated, and there is often property damage and fights, roadblocks and the like.
This current round opened like a normal French manifestation, albeit with more violence. This is why I have watched (along with everyone else in France!) so closely to see if it would become murderous, or if it would remain within the cadre of normal behavior. These are urban toughs, many of them. They have resorted to property damage and hurting people right from the get-go. But so far it has been recognizably French. I've been watching the various new broadcasts from Paris, and what the rioters interviewed on them are saying is precisely what my relatives who live in the areas that are rioting are saying; this is about social exclusion, not Islam.
Normal French strikes or manifestations are not quite riots. When they go on, they get quite "chaud", and they can go on for weeks. Sometimes, some cars are torched. This is much worse. And yet, it is not a terrorist Islamist insurgency (at least not yet anyway) because the marked lack of fatalities after so much destruction shows that these rioters are still bound by the usual French limits.
They are hotheaded young men, but not entirely lost to reason.
What THEY are saying is that they want the police to stop beating them up, and they want jobs. There are also some voices using the general fray to demand a variety of things that won't happen. Islamists are out there trying to create no-go zones, but this will not happen. The government isn't going to concede.
So, the short answer to your question is that French strikes can get hot, and they can go on for weeks and shut down the country. But they are usually not this fiery, with this much property destruction. Were this to generalize in the public, it would be another Revolution.
As it is, it is going to result in the further marginalization of the Beurs.
The more things change....
"I think the difference here is that the rioters don't think of themselves as French,"
If you speak French, go online to France Info and watch the news reports. You will see interviews with many of these rioters. They will tell you that they are French and that they have been excluded from their own country and it's not fair and they're going to break things until they get what's their due.
You'll see a guy named Mohammed hold up his national ID card and say "I've sent out 70 CVs, but with this name, I cannot ever get a job, and that's why I'm doing this. It's not right."
And they are telling the truth, both of them. That's why they're doing it. Mohammed really can't get a job in France. His parents so named him, and thereby doomed him to unemployment. He is French, but EXCLUDED.
The riots are happening because of social exclusion.
How do you FIX that?
The only way is to get people jobs, to loosen the job laws so that companies can hire workers without marrying them forever.
But try to change those laws in order to create jobs, and you will have strikes more massive and widespread than the current Beur unrest.
Agreed, it was just an excuse for rioting at first, all in a day's fun to some people. The burning of cars seems to have been a favorite tactic for many years in France, there have been apparently 28,000 cars burned so far this year alone!
But then the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Green Party started calling for Sarkozy to be fired, and of course the "youts" are picking up on that.
The PCF seem to be behind the spread of the riots to outlying cities. Commies know how to use anarchy to further their goals.
Ha ha ha!
I love this poster about "Effort".
Where can it be gotten?
Those wonderful heroes died to protect our nation and our allies from the evils of the Nazis, fascism, etc. You don't think we should do it again if necessary to save Jews and Christians from annihilation, just because in the process, we might have to save France again? Sad.
"The guillotine"!
www.demotivators.com
"What are the complaints of the Muslims in Denmark"
~~~~~~~~~~
Apparently they are disgruntled because Denmark does not belong to them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1516860/posts
"As Muslim riots spread across France, Denmark is also beginning to see its own Islamic Intifada. In Arhus, Denmark, young Muslims were heard chanting, “This land belongs to us!”
"A masked spokesman for the rioters told Danish reporters that Muslims were tired of being oppressed and harassed and warned the police to stay away. "This is our area. We rule this place,” he said."
Always wear bright yellow if you are going to riot. Just sensible safety precaution. ;-)
An army that can't be used against all enemies of the state is no longer combat effective either. The French are sitting on a nuclear arsenal. They need to know who they can trust and who they can't within their own military. If soldiers who are muslims will not fight other muslims who are threatening the country's sovereignty, they need to be identified and discharged.
French PM says curfews will be imposed if necessary!
http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2005/11/07/afx2322652.html
Thx for the report on Villepin. He's just what one would expect of a former diplomat. He wants to negotiate a settlement with terrorists.
I suspect that these riots are merely cover for a massive weapons smuggling operation.
It is only a matter of time before France will be hit by terrorist attacks from Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations like the Algerian Al Jammaa Al Mousalha Al Islamia (The Islamic Armed Group). They are going to find enough recruits among these mulsim rioters to cause severe horror and destruction in France and possibly all over Western Europe. You appeased them for long and now you are going to pay for your appeasement and defeatism.
Police brutality? It might be true. But what good is setting fire to your own neighborhoods? If the police overreact out of fear, how is justifying their fear going to help the situation?
I guess that is what I don't understand. I don't understand it when that mentality shows up here, and I don't understand it when it is part of the culture there.
My parents grew up in the Depression. Both of them lost their fathers and were raised in large families by widowed mothers. They faced all kinds of hardships without much education and without government assistance. They didn't complain about it -- they didn't expect it.
Most rational, clear thinking people believe it was necessary about 10 or 11 nights ago.
Originally they were offended by a cartoonist poking fun at Mohammed, but I have come to believe anything can be an excuse for these people to riot. Thay are easily so offended.
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