Posted on 11/08/2005 3:10:54 AM PST by Dane
French youths riot again Tue Nov 8, 2005 10:16 AM GMT
Villepin announces curfews French officials, community leaders
By Tom Heneghan
PARIS (Reuters) - Youths rioted across France overnight, torching more than 1,000 vehicles, despite government plans to impose curfews to quell almost two weeks of unrest.
The protests, blamed on racism and unemployment, receded in the Paris region after shots were fired at police the previous night but continued unabated in other parts of France in the early hours of Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said.
Other countries watched nervously and some issued travel warnings. Five cars were torched overnight in Brussels, in addition to five set ablaze on Sunday, in what officials say might have been copycat attacks.
The renewed violence followed a warning by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin that he would take a firm line against lawbreakers, including reinforcements for police and curfews, not seen in France since the Algerian war of 1954-1962.
Villepin's cabinet met on Tuesday and approved the steps.
"Wherever it is necessary, prefects will be able to impose a curfew," Villepin said, referring to the senior officials responsible for security in departments around the country.
A town east of Paris imposed its own curfew on minors on Monday evening and another to the west of the capital organised citizens' patrols to help the police.
Villepin said 1,500 police and gendarmes would be brought in to back up the 8,000 officers already deployed in areas hit by unrest. He also promised to accelerate urban renewal programmes and outlined other plans to help young people in poor suburbs.
MIXED REACTION TO VILLEPIN PLANS
Mayors of riot-hit towns welcomed the tougher line, but some asked what another measure announced by Villepin -- extended powers for them -- would actually mean in practice.
"Every time they announce more powers for mayors, they cut the funds," complained Jean-Christophe Lagarde, mayor of the northeastern Paris suburb of Drancy.
Elisabeth Guigou, a Socialist deputy from the northeastern Paris suburbs, said that invoking a curfew law passed during the Algerian war was "not the best reference" for fighting unrest among youths mostly of North African Arab and African origin.
The left-wing daily Liberation recalled in an editorial that Jacques Chirac was elected president in 1995 after pledging to repair France's "social fracture".
"Chirac's reign is a tragic farce," it wrote.
The opposition Socialists said Villepin had not done enough to give hope to those people in areas hit by the unrest, which has involved poor whites as well as French-born citizens of Arab or African origin complaining of racism and unemployment.
"Beyond the necessary calls for order, what was missing in the prime minister's address was a social dimension, a message and precise commitments towards the people of these areas in difficulty," the Socialist Party said in a statement.
ANOTHER NIGHT OF VIOLENCE
France's conservative government has struggled to formulate a response that could halt the unrest, blamed by many youths on frustration over unemployment, harsh treatment by police and racism.
The violence has prompted warnings that the unrest could damage investment and tourism in France.
The Interior Ministry said 1,173 vehicles had been torched during the night, compared to 1,408 the previous night.
At least four police were hurt, compared with 36 on Sunday night. Some 330 rioters were detained.
In Toulouse, youths set fire to a bus and 21 cars, police said. At least two cars were set ablaze near Lille and two more in Strasbourg, Reuters reporters said.
Police said 14 cars were set alight in the Yvelines district west of Paris and 17 in Seine-Saint-Denis north of the capital, home to many Arab and African immigrants where the unrest began.
Officials in neighbouring Belgium played down the extent of the violence there, although there were also minor incidents of arson in Sint Niklaas in the north and Liege in the east.
"There were no riots. These were all very isolated incidents. Whoever set fire to the cars must have been influenced by the footage of what is going on in France," Brussels fire department spokesman Francis Boileau said.
(Additional reporting by Eric Faye in Paris)
Probably.
They've a potential consumer market they are trying to appeal to. Core Islamacism rejects capitalism and consumerism, as I understand it. Perhaps, the MSM sees a new market challenge, and possibly some see the capitalist markets as a means to assimilating the youths/rioters/Islamacists.
There's a danger, IMHO, in the MSM not quite really understanding the nature of beliefs.
Caption: les deux incompetents
And the band plays on.
The politicians should be cautious about the reasons they state for the rioting because the next statement will be that "poverty is the cause".....and France and Europe will go down the wrong path in their own War On Poverty like we did....leaving all their inner cities occupied by Islamic militants bent in Islamizing all of Europe.
The radio news I heard this morning: With a firm hand and a velvet glove, the Prime Minister announced that cities may enforce a curfew.
Such imagery! Such strength! I was absolutely stunned by the firm resolve!
Yep. I know they've put out some warnings but not sure if anything official from State has come down.
This has probably been mentioned already in this thread, but the smashing of the Australian terrorist plot makes clear that the rioting in France is part of an orchestrated Mohammedan separatist campaign timed to coincide with Ramadan.
The nazis marched through a working middle class largely polish and slavic neighborhood. The locals from other neighborhoods (let's be honest here - they were black gangs) took that as a opportunity to loot and pillage.
These RATS will pick any target that will bend to them..As all rats they go after a sure thing..And France was first and then comes other weak countries..Strange how rats will turn on the very people that tried to help them before we went into Iraq..
BUMP!
That was cool. Tiki's stock went way up in my book.
Thank you so very much..this everyone should read and not sit back and wait for the rats to attack us..
>> This has probably been mentioned already in this thread, but the smashing of the Australian terrorist plot makes clear that the rioting in France is part of an orchestrated Mohammedan separatist campaign timed to coincide with Ramadan. <<
I was thinking this very thing this morning. Worrisome.
To them, religion is "the opiate of the masses." Give the people cake, and religion will no longer be necessary.
Bad assumption.
The truth is that a religion that promises an afterlife will always defeat a secular army in battle, because the religious fighters have something to die for.
What in the world would a lefty French government look like ?
These guys have got their act together !!
Iran?
There were 4 shootings in Camden and Philadelphia yesterday.
I believe they were all teens. France has rioting teens burning vehicles and businesses. Maybe a travel warning to Philadelphia would be in order? America had 16,000 murders in one year.
America seem to be more dangerous than France or Baghdad.
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