Free Republic

Wasn't it only yesterday the media were telling us that the French are so wise in choosing diplomacy over the use of force, and so clever at handling relations with Third World people - in other words, so unlike the trigger-happy unilateralists on this side of the Atlantic? Well, guess what? After three weeks of rioting in Parisian suburbs, those sophisticated, worldly French have been transformed into a nation of repressive, racist pigs, in the eyes of the U.S. press. All it took was a few thousand burning Citroens to illuminate the situation. For the mainstream media (inveterate root-causers), riots...

LONDON/PARIS: In the first disturbing assertion that a European country and its capital can be brought to a halt by the massed forces of Islamist militants both within and outside its borders, French police warned there was evidence they had played a role in inciting vandals, albeit "not on the front lines." With the tough-talking interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy warning of stiff jail sentences for the rioters, there were signs the French capital was a city under siege. With night buses in and to some of the more remote suburbs cancelled to prevent rioters using them as soft targets, police...