European Politics Thread.

[ran 0]

@ Nov. 06 2005,11:25)]Sure could use a Ran update right about now- the coverage of these riots here in America has been sparse at best, nonexistent at worst, and most of it is of the "lol France" flavor anyway. I want some firsthand accounts =\

I'm not allowed to say much on this matter.

Let's say it's just a hoodies riot which doesn't feel like ending.

Not all the pricks in the street are arab or even muslim for that matter.

We've already have had similar occurences in the past but on a much smaller scale (New Year Eve in Strasbourg) where people would just burn and destroy for the sake of it.

To me it's likely to be a political stunt to help somebody for the next presidential elections (Sarkozy .... hum, no, the little boy throwing oil on the fire won't do ... Le Pen ? De Villiers ?) .

From what I've seen, the media coverage abroad has been slightly exaggerating the mess. The Police and Gendarmerie forces have the means to accomplish their mission, but they're somewhat not allowed to do their job with officials and media finding excuses like the "fact" that these people are well organised and that they act in small groups.

The appearent inactivity of the police forces may also be the result of a new policy I won't go too much in depth with, let's say that some officials feel that if the inhabitants of those dorm suburbs get pissed enough, they may aswell take care of the job by themselves.

What my coworkers and I fear the most is the contamination of suburbs in the rest of France by this "gangsta crowd" phenomenon.

The only real motivation behind this violence outburst is frustration and the fact that some little assholes want to show their "tess"(suburb) off and want their "homies" to see their brand T-shirt and gangsta look in the evening news.

It's obvious that the islamists will find a good occasion to recruit in this mess and that the non-muslims and the less extremists will dig themselves an even deeper hole.

I'm not a social worker, and they have failed in their task in the past 25 years. The only answer I see right now is mass arrests, CRS charges and the muscular "wake up call" (5 or 6 .am raid on the individual's place) of the wannabe "meneurs" and the heads of the gangs. We can't let this go on as the population of complete dumbasses in France has reached a critical mass and if we don't put an end to this mess, soon it will become a trend for the youths to burn shit down.

I'm neither Psychologist nor Sociologist so I won't write a thesis about their motives hidden or not ... let's jsut say these riots are the result of a failure : the failure of the Republic to integrate these sociopathic retards, but is it completely its fault ?

[Supah 0]

Quote[/b] ]You know Supah, for someone who considers himself left-of-centre, your opinions on the Islam sound a lot like those of Marco Pastors.

Marco Pastors thinks some people steal because they are muslim and the quran says its ok to steal from non believers. I think people steal because they have no basic respect for other peoples property. If Marco Pastors was right then why arent all muslims thiefs? Theft is the result of a personal decision made by a criminal to rather take from others what he is to lazy to work for himself no matter what excuse he likes to make afterwards for it about the quran saying its ok.

Quote[/b] ]

As to this:

Quote[/b] ]The french police made the wrong decision ages ago when they decided it was best to let sleeping dogs lie and not go into the islamist freestates in their suburbs in order to not stir up trouble. This is tremendously counter productive for a couple of reasons.

I'm afraid you are not quite aware of what the situation was in the ghetto's. The police were not absent, on the contrary - they regularly harrassed the inhabitants, stopping and frisking people based solely on their appearence. I suggest you read some sociologists' reports and/or books on this matter (for example Laurent Mucchielli's Violences et insécurité. Fantasmes et réalités dans le débat français). The inhabitants of the ghetto's experienced the police actions as systematic humiliations. That, combined with low socio-economic standing, is the reason for the riots, not some supposed Islamist supremacy sentiments. The deaths of the three youths, as irrelevant and stupid they may seem (who hides in an electricity sub-station?), were a gush of oxygen that turned smouldering discontent into flaming riots.

Nothing can justify such all-encompassing violence, but to blame it on the big bad Islam is a knee-jerk reaction based on ignorance and prejudice.

To believe everything that is written in books is equally ignorant. If you were to read Pim Fortuyns book and believe the whole of it you would get a pretty distorted view of the netherlands too. Calling people ignorant and prejudiced is a rather childish debating tactic. If you want to believe that islamic radicalisme amongst youths has nothing to do with these problems and as long as their given more and more help this will all be over then believe what you want. Having heard how these people react to law enforcement from first hand accounts I know how these people percieve everything aimed at lessening crime as "systematic humiliation" as soon as the persons caught is one of their ethnic community. I used to live in one of the worst area's of Leeuwarden where pre emptive frisking was common. They stopped everyone, me included, I didn't mind. I had nothing to hide. But when they stopped a muslim man wearing a full length Islamic dress they emmediatly go "You are singling me out because of how I look!" even though they were frisking EVERYONE going into and out of a certain area. Whites were being frisked to left and right but these people just keep up the "You are discriminating against me!" exercise. These people have a very short fuse and if a police officer as much as looks in their direction their being singled out and discriminated. Their "The police is always in our neighbourhood harrasing us!" act is shallow and dimwitted as the police is in that neighbourhood because their youths hang around on streetcorners at night shouting abuse at people, scratching cars in parking lots and where ever they hang out people start getting mugged in dark spots, how very peculiar a coincidence.

Their economic situation is partly of their own making. If you hang out on street corners all night instead of studying because you have this preconception you will be discriminated against you are making your own self full filling prophecy. You won't have a decent education and you won't get a decent job but hey who cares you can always claim you are being discriminated against. Is this rioting going to improve their situation? No ofcourse not. All the inhabitants that DO try to make something of their lives possessions and businesses are burning to the ground nightly. Too give into violence now is to give yourself a "gift" that will keep on "giving".

If this is just about socio economic standing why arent europe's asian minorities having these problems? They came from societies with different cultures then those of western europe. Do they have the same crime problem? Do they have the same problems with participating in society? Do they feel as discriminated against? Maybe you should have watched some of the news coverage from journalist who infiltrated the rioting groups. You dont hear many calls to improve their socio economic standing, I dont hear many calls for labour reforms, school scholarships and police reform. I hear calls for Jihad, Holy war, Kill the unbelievers and allah akhbar. This rioting does nothing to improve their socio economic standing and is totally counter productive.

[SPQR 0]

Just to explain before everybody inflame himself...

The current "riots" are neither related to religion, nor the rioters are muslims wanting to spread a civil war. They may call themselves muslim like their parents and shout "Allah Akbar" to the Police, but they are ignorants of their parents' religion, unfaithfull, and shout such sentences because it's in fashion since the GW2.

These lads are uneducated, only speaking with not more than 500 words of vocabulary, and many are known criminals for drug affairs, thefts,...

ABSOLUTLY nothing related to nauseous and ignorant journalism from FOX News , for example, wanting us to believe France is becoming a new Bagdad, because of the spread of Jihad :

Quote[/b] ]Paris Rioters Set Woman Afire as Violence Spreads

Paris Rioters Set Woman Afire as Violence Spreads

Friday, November 04, 2005

AUBERVILLIERS, France — Marauding bands of Muslim youth set fire to cars and warehouses and pelted rescuers with rocks early Saturday, as the worst rioting in a decade spread from Paris to other French cities. The United States warned Americans against taking trains to the airport via strife-torn areas.

A savage assault on a bus passenger highlighted the dangers of travel in Paris' Muslim-filled and impoverished outlying neighborhoods, where the violence has entered its second week.

The African immigrant attackers doused the woman, in her 50s and on crutches, with an inflammable liquid and set her afire as she tried to get off a bus in the suburb of Sevran (search) Wednesday, judicial officials said. The bus had been forced to stop because of burning objects in its path. She was rescued by the driver and hospitalized with severe burns.

Justice Minister Pascal Clement (search) deplored the incident, saying it caused him "great emotion."

Rioters burned more than 500 vehicles Friday as the unrest grew beyond the French capital for the first time. Unrest returned to the streets in the evening and early Saturday, the ninth night in a row.

Police said troublemakers fired bullets into a vandalized bus and burned 85 more cars in Paris and Suresnes, just to the west. In Meaux (search), east of Paris, officials said youths stoned rescuers aiding someone who had fallen ill.

Meanwhile, warehouses in Suresnes and Aubervilliers, on the northern edge of Paris, were set ablaze. Officials said other fires raged outside the capital in Lille, Toulouse, and Rouen, while an incendiary device was tossed at the wall outside a synagogue in Pierrefitte, northwest of Paris.

Some 30 mayors from the Seine-Saint-Denis region (search) where the unrest started Oct. 27 met Friday to make a joint call for calm. Claude Pernes, mayor of Rosny-sous-Bois, denounced a "veritable guerrilla situation, urban insurrection" that has taken hold.

A national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cell phone text messages or e-mails — arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations.

The violence started Oct. 27 after the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who believed police were chasing them in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, dominated by low-income housing projects.

Since then riots have swelled into a broader challenge against the French state and its security forces. The violence has exposed deep discontent in neighborhoods where African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children are trapped by poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, crime, poor education and housing.

During the day Friday, the burned remains of at least 520 cars littered Parisian streets, an increase from previous nights. Five police officers were lightly injured by youths throwing stones or bottles, the Interior Ministry said.

At a depot in Trappes, to the southwest, 27 buses were incinerated, officials said.

The commuter train line linking Paris to Charles de Gaulle (search) airport ran limited service Friday after two trains were targeted Wednesday night.

The U.S. Embassy (search) called the protests "extremely violent" and warned travelers against taking trains to the airport because they pass through the troubled area. Russia, meanwhile, warned citizens against visiting the suburbs.

The Foreign Ministry said it was concerned that foreign media coverage was exaggerating the situation. "I don't have the feeling that foreign tourists in Paris are in any way placed in danger by these events," ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said, adding that officials were "sometimes a bit surprised" by the foreign coverage.

Still, the violence has alarmed the government of President Jacques Chirac (search), whose calls for calm have gone unheeded.

"This is the first time (suburban violence) has lasted so long and the government appears taken aback at the magnitude," said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Center for Study of French Political Life.

There were "few direct clashes" with security forces late Thursday and early Friday, however, no bullets fired at police, and far fewer large groups of rioters, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official in Seine-Saint-Denis.

Instead, Cordet said, the unrest in Seine-Saint-Denis was led by "numerous small and highly mobile groups" that burned 187 vehicles and five buildings, including three warehouses.

The unrest erupted with youths angered over the deaths of Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, who were electrocuted when they hid in a power substation in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.

Traore's brother, Siyakah Traore, called for protesters to "calm down and stop ransacking everything."

"This is not how we are going to have our voices heard," he told RTL radio, adding his voice to neighborhood groups working to stop the violence.

Dozens of residents and community leaders were stepping in to defuse tensions, with some walking between rioters and police to urge youths to back down.

Abderrhamane Bouhout, head of the Bilal mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois (search), said he had enlisted 50 youths to try stop the violence. "We've had positive results," he said.

In France, we don't speak of muslims (except extreme-right politics), but youth or scums

The main problem is that a minority of brainless boys, organized or not, through juvenile delinquency, violence, drug dealing,... are harmful to a majority who just would like to live peacefully, after seriously hard working and studying, as everybody.

Those lads should just have be spanked earlier and harder

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

This isn't a religious matter.

This is a result of years of frustration. These people have had a lifestyle way lower than their fellow countrymen. The areas affected have been largely ignored the past decade, and what we see, is these frustrated people trying to tell the world about how poor they have been treated.

They are just doing it the wrong way. What this causes is just hate against these people (whom have been stamped as muslims by some).

Whats terrible is that its going nationwide. Small groups from all over France are picking up "the fight". Last night, 900 cars were torched. Kindergardens, schools and other public buildings were set on fire as well.

I don't think the people that started it would think that it would be this big. I can't imagine anyone would be stupid enough to "start a revolution" right now.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

I'll see your spasmodic and violent expressions of disenfranchisement and raise you a metaphor for the crushing inevitability of victory for the status quo:

[billybob2002 0]

Just to explain before everybody inflame himself...

The current "riots" are neither related to religion, nor the rioters are muslims wanting to spread a civil war. They may call themselves muslim like their parents and shout "Allah Akbar" to the Police, but they are ignorants of their parents' religion, unfaithfull, and shout such sentences because it's in fashion since the GW2.

These lads are uneducated, only speaking with not more than 500 words of vocabulary, and many are known criminals for drug affairs, thefts,...

ABSOLUTLY nothing related to nauseous and ignorant journalism from FOX News   , for example, wanting us to believe France is becoming a new Bagdad, because of the spread of Jihad :

(SNIP)

In France, we don't speak of muslims (except extreme-right politics), but youth or scums  

The main problem is that a minority of brainless boys, organized or not, through juvenile delinquency, violence, drug dealing,... are harmful to a majority who just would like to live peacefully, after seriously hard working and studying, as everybody.

Those lads should just have be spanked earlier and harder

First, it is a AP release. Second, in their top stories section, they use another AP release:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,174686,00.html

Quote[/b] ]

The violence — originally concentrated in northeastern suburbs of Paris with large immigrant populations — is forcing France to confront anger long-simmering in the neighborhoods, where many Arab and African Muslim immigrants live on society's margins, struggling with unemployment, poor housing, racial discrimination, crime and a lack of opportunity.

Quote[/b] ]

Government officials have held a series of meetings with Muslim religious leaders, local officials and youths from poor suburbs to try to calm the violence.

[whisper 0]

Like everyone being at least slightly in touch with the matter (read : french ), I'll just insist on the fact none of the revendication of these rioters are religious. Religion is absolutely not related in this matter, bare the fact that these guys feel rejected partially because they're muslim (and also because they're not white, they're young, etc...).

Assuming this is driven by islamic fundamentalism is being mislead (or an anti-islam bias?)

[theavonlady 2]

Like everyone being at least slightly in touch with the matter (read : french ), I'll just insist on the fact none of the revendication of these rioters are religious. Religion is absolutely not related in this matter, bare the fact that these guys feel rejected partially because they're muslim (and also because they're not white, they're young, etc...).

Assuming this is driven by islamic fundamentalism is being mislead (or an anti-islam bias?)

One of these is not like the other:

Quote[/b] ]WHY PARIS IS BURNING

By AMIR TAHERI

Fri Nov 4, 6:00 AM ET

AS THE night falls, the "troubles" start — and the pattern is always the same.

Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones and ransack cinemas, libraries and schools. When the police arrive on the scene, the rioters attack them with stones, knives and baseball bats.

The police respond by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasions, blank shots in the air. Sometimes the youths fire back — with real bullets.

These scenes are not from the West Bank but from 20 French cities, mostly close to Paris, that have been plunged into a European version of the intifada that at the time of writing appears beyond control.

The troubles first began in Clichy-sous-Bois, an underprivileged suburb east of Paris, a week ago. France's bombastic interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, responded by sending over 400 heavily armed policemen to "impose the laws of the republic," and promised to crush "the louts and hooligans" within the day. Within a few days, however, it had dawned on anyone who wanted to know that this was no "outburst by criminal elements" that could be handled with a mixture of braggadocio and batons.

By Monday, everyone in Paris was speaking of "an unprecedented crisis." Both Sarkozy and his boss, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, had to cancel foreign trips to deal with the riots.

How did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week, a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: stealing parts of parked cars.

Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened, as the police have not been present in that suburb for years.

The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something — which meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them.

Once the police arrived on the scene, the youths — who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years — got really angry. A brief chase took place in the street, and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned-off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted.

Once news of their deaths was out, Clichy was all up in arms.

With cries of "God is great," bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee.

The French authorities could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from French territory. So they hit back — sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.

Within hours, the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the "occupied territories." By midweek, the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris, with a population of 5.5 million.

But who lives in the affected areas? In Clichy itself, more than 80 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim immigrants or their children, mostly from Arab and black Africa. In other affected towns, the Muslim immigrant community accounts for 30 percent to 60 percent of the population. But these are not the only figures that matter. Average unemployment in the affected areas is estimated at around 30 percent and, when it comes to young would-be workers, reaches 60 percent.

In these suburban towns, built in the 1950s in imitation of the Soviet social housing of the Stalinist era, people live in crammed conditions, sometimes several generations in a tiny apartment, and see "real French life" only on television.

The French used to flatter themselves for the success of their policy of assimilation, which was supposed to turn immigrants from any background into "proper Frenchmen" within a generation at most.

That policy worked as long as immigrants came to France in drips and drops and thus could merge into a much larger mainstream. Assimilation, however, cannot work when in most schools in the affected areas, fewer than 20 percent of the pupils are native French speakers.

France has also lost another powerful mechanism for assimilation: the obligatory military service abolished in the 1990s.

As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for "calmer places," thus making assimilation still more difficult.

In some areas, it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French, let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.

The result is often alienation. And that, in turn, gives radical Islamists an opportunity to propagate their message of religious and cultural apartheid.

Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be reorganized on the basis of the "millet" system of the Ottoman Empire: Each religious community (millet) would enjoy the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.

In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place. In these areas, all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheiks.

The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin," such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, to close down, and seized control of much of the local administration.

A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out.

"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheiks, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

   President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of     Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community.

That illusion has now been shattered — and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb."

It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture," but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life to which all mankind should aspire.

So what is the solution? One solution, offered by Gilles Kepel, an adviser to Chirac on Islamic affairs, is the creation of "a new Andalusia" in which Christians and Muslims would live side by side and cooperate to create a new cultural synthesis.

The problem with Kepel's vision, however, is that it does not address the important issue of political power. Who will rule this new Andalusia: Muslims or the largely secularist Frenchmen?

Suddenly, French politics has become worth watching again, even though for the wrong reasons.

Amir Taheri, editor of the French quarterly "Politique internationale," is a member of Benador Associates.

[Tigershark_BAS 0]

@ Nov. 06 2005,18:41)]I'll see your spasmodic and violent expressions of disenfranchisement and raise you a metaphor for the crushing inevitability of victory for the status quo:

This was classic Tex....thanks for the chuckle

[Tigershark_BAS 0]

Something that has always confused and mystified me...and perhaps someone has some insight on this as I can truly confess to having no idea...

but why is it that when poorer and oppressed communities protest they feel the most appropriate course of action is to trash and destroy and their own neighbourhoods and infrastructure. Isn't that car they are burning possibly their uncle's or sister's boyfriends? Isn't that movie theater the one which offered temporary escape from the difficulty of their life. Isn't that corner store the one that gave them a weeks credit when they were waiting for a welfare check to come through. Why destroy the little you have? Or is it that they believe by destroying it the government will be forced to replace it with new stuff.

Anyone?

[Thunderbird 0]

I don't think that burning more than 4500 Middle Class people's cars in less than 4 days would make advance negotiations between both sides!

plus these cars belong to people like you and me..., but the worst thing is still the fact that the french media channels directly attack our minister of interior by accusing him to be the man behind all of these problems!

I frankly and absolutely agree with his remarks on this situation and on the necessary expected measures to take these problems out,though.

Unfotunately such situations usually create amalgams, prejudices and even force some people to follow the hatred's way.

I hope that things will get better within the next days.

Regards

Thunderbird84

[Ironsight 1]

Something that has always confused and mystified me...and perhaps someone has some insight on this as I can truly confess to having no idea...

but why is it that when poorer and oppressed communities protest they feel the most appropriate course of action is to trash and destroy and their own neighbourhoods and infrastructure. Isn't that car they are burning possibly their uncle's or sister's boyfriends? Isn't that movie theater the one which offered temporary escape from the difficulty of their life. Isn't that corner store the one that gave them a weeks credit when they were waiting for a welfare check to come through. Why destroy the little you have? Or is it that they believe by destroying it the government will be forced to replace it with new stuff.

Anyone?

Because they are stupid.....

Quote[/b] ]French riots claim first victim

Monday, November 7, 2005; Posted: 8:17 a.m. EST (13:17 GMT)

PARIS, France (CNN) -- A man who was beaten by an attacker during rioting north of Paris has died, becoming the first fatality since urban unrest started 11 days ago, according to the French Foreign Ministry.

The man was beaten as he tried to put out a trash can fire on Friday in the Paris suburb of Stains in the region of Seine-Saint Denis.

A ministry spokesman identified the man as Jean Jacques Le Chenadec, 61, and said he died in a hospital of his wounds. He had been in a coma since the attack near his home.

The rioting, which started in Paris after two black teenagers were electrocuted on October 27 while fleeing from police, has since spread around the country. Residents blamed police for the deaths. (Paris has simmered)

Fears were also growing Monday that the unrest could take hold elsewhere in Europe. Five cars have been torched in both Brussels and Berlin and police said they were they were investigating if they were copycat attacks. (Full story)

Damage from protests across France hit a new peak overnight, as rioters burned 1,408 vehicles, France's national police chief said. More than 4,300 vehicles have been burned since the riots began 11 days ago.

The figure was an increase from the night before, when 1,295 vehicles were burned, Michel Gaudin told a news conference. He said that police made 395 arrests overnight Sunday-Monday, up from 345 the night before.

Ten riot police were injured by youths firing fine-grain birdshot in the southern Paris suburb of Grigny, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said.

Two were hospitalized but their lives were not in danger, he said. It was the first time police were injured by weapons fire since the unrest started.

"We are witnessing a sort of shock wave that is spreading across the country," Gaudin said, noting that the violence appeared to be sliding away from Paris and worsening elsewhere in France.

The violence came in open defiance to a warning by French President Jacques Chirac who pledged to clamp down on the troublemakers.

Chirac emerged from an emergency meeting with top members of his Cabinet on Sunday to tell his nation that the "absolute priority is to reestablish security and public order."

"The law should have the final say, and the republic is determined to be stronger than those who want spread violence and fear. Those people will be apprehended, judged and punished."

Chirac also said he wanted to address what some observers have blamed as the cause -- unemployment as high as 50 percent among the nation's poor immigrant youth and discrimination against them.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin promised speeded up trials for rioters and extra security during the worst civil unrest seen in France in at least a decade.

The list of cities attacked is growing -- from Lille in the north to Rouen and Orleans in the west, to the Mediterranean cities of Nice and Cannes, to Strasbourg and Colmar in the east, with youths attacking shops, schools and a police station.

CNN correspondents have said renegade youths have turned neighborhoods into no-go zones, even in the daytime.

Among the worst incidents reported -- rocks thrown at two buses hit a 13-month-old child in Colombe, an official with the Interior Ministry said. The child was in serious condition.

In the northern city of Rouen, a police barricade was set afire and a burning car was pushed into the police station; and in Strasbourg, near the German border, a school was torched.

A church was set ablaze in the southern fishing town of Sete and another in nearby Lens, Pas de Calais; two schools in the southeastern town of Saint-Etienne and a police station in the central France town of Clermont-Ferrand were torched, as was a social center in Seine-Saint-Denis, near the border with Switzerland.

There have been calls by opposition groups on the left, including the Green Party and the Communist Party, for Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to resign after he called the rioters "scum" last week -- language that inflamed the vandalism. (Watch French teens explain why they're angry -- 2:08)

The spreading violence has shocked national leaders and community residents into action, with mediators and religious leaders talking to the youths in an effort to stop the violence.

French Muslim groups also issued a fatwa against the violence, according to Reuters news agency. (Full story)

The Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) condemned the disorder and destruction the riots had caused.

Australia, Austria, Britain, Germany and Hungary advised their citizens to exercise care in France, joining the United States and Russia in warning tourists to stay away from violence-hit areas.

R.I.P.

[whisper 0]

To Tigershark :

I've absolutely no clue why, tbh.

It must be said than many of the rioters are very young, 13-18. They'll fight in their area, cause they know it and can outsmart the police there, and nowhere else. That restrict their possibilities.

It's completely stupid, and it's not targeting the ones they're complaining about, but...

To Avon :

Very nice to show us an article trying to start from facts and bending them to fullfill its own agenda.

So, once more : none of the rioters have ever mentionned religion, "leaving the muslims alone", creating some muslim only zones, etc...

In fact, many are parts of gangs and underground organization (by "are part", I mean than they know people in such organization and help them) which claim these areas as "their territory". It's nothing religious, it's mainly economical (contraband, drugs, etc...).

Others claim "leave us alone" in reference to the constant pressure they recieve from police since Sarkozy enforced a tough stance regarding criminality. They're very often interrogated by policemen without any justification, in brutal and degrading manners. I've witnessed it first hand in more than 1 occasion. They're just fed up of it.

So, first point is that the vocal ones amongst the rioters never mentionned islam. They claim their "territory" (like gangs do since decades, way before extremism was a real issue), they want to be left quiet when moving in the city. Saying Islam is the root of it is theorical. Theorical BS, to be honest.

But the opinion I'll regard the highest is the one of people living there. My wife lived in Aulnay s/Bois for decades, many of the friends we have come from here, I've at work people from Aubervilliers, etc... and I kept friends from the time I lived near Les Mureaux. It's in this suburbs that rioters are destroying cars, etc...

All agree on 1 thing : it's for the most part kids engaged in a sort of competition to destroy a maximum of things.

A collegue here told us 30 mns ago he saw older teenagers chasing kids who just burnt his car, to hand them to their father.

That's the tough point for the police here : how do you retaliate on kids?

Now, I'm not saying that there's zero fondamentalism issue in these areas (fondamentalism is indeed growing), just that it's not the cause of all the current mess. Apart from non-french press (strange, isn't it ), the islamic fundamentlism root of the riot is never mentionned. Each time, officials, etc... are asked if they think islam could be a cause, each time the answer is no. By people living there, seeing what happens.

All this just shows us how we UTTERLY FAILED in integrating these populations.

[whisper 0]

I don't think that burning more than 4500 Middle Class people's cars in less than 4 days would make advance negotiations between both sides!

plus these cars belong to people like you and me..., but the worst thing is still the fact that the french media channels directly attack our minister of interior by accusing him to be the man behind all of these problems!

I frankly and absolutely agree with his remarks on this situation and on the necessary expected measures to take these problems out,though.

Unfotunately such situations usually create amalgams, prejudices and even force some people to follow the hatred's way.

I hope that things will get better within the next days.

Regards

Thunderbird84

It's not even middle class, TB. It's their own neighbor's car, can't classify him as "middle class"

About amalgams, just read Avon's article

Guess who will score in the next election?

[Thunderbird 0]

Quote[/b] ]About amalgams, just read Avon's article

With no offense towards lady Avon, I absolutely don't care about her articles and I totally ignore her "so" famous attitude to prove that "islam" and "muslims" are sources of the current hatred and problems as well.

Quote[/b] ]Guess who will score in the next election?

Definetly, that's really unfortunate..., The incoming elections won't make any suspens because we already know one of the finalists :-(

Regards

Thunderbird84

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

They are just a bunch of wannabe gangstas that think destruction is fun! The reason for all this mess is not a lack of integration, the process of getthoisation or unequal rights. The reason for these people to go so beserk is simply their bad upbringing.

In contrast to 1789 these kiddies are not starving nor living on the streets. These are just bored children that dont go to school and therefore dont feel tired at night. I say France need to act and not behave like antiauthoritarian parents of the 70ies. Show brutal force and these children will learn what is funny and what isnt! Thanks to the passiveness of the french administration the german kinds already started to copy the trend. Four cars were burned yesterday in a rahter poor district of Berlin. If I see one of these wananbe InstanbulFighters touch my car I will definetly behave illegaly ....

[whisper 0]

I agree on a certain level (the one really acting must see the consequences).

OTOH There are indeed issues in integrating these populations. Most are jobless. And it's not like they don't try.

[Thunderbird 0]

Quote[/b] ]Show brutal force and these children will learn what is funny and what isnt!

Well, the french mentality would never allow such a method, even if it somehow might be quite useful...

Regards

Thunderbird84

[xawery 0]

Let me start off by saying that there is little love lost between me and the Islam. On the contrary, I consider the Islam - and any other religion, for that matter - to be little more than brain-washing based on unsubstantiated myths and a base desire for absolute 'truths'. I do not deny that religion can be practised in peace, that would be foolish: millions of people prove that every day. I do believe however that religion should be restricted to the private domain.

I oppose the Islam-bashing because it stems from nothing else but xenophobia, and it draws attention away from the real problem: religion in general. Why are special (religious) schools being subsidised by the state, with taxpayers' money? Why is it necessary to have a separate paragraph in the (Dutch) constitution, dealing with the protection of religion? We all live under the rule of law, we all deserve the same protection. Why does religion warrant a separate mention?

This may seem off-topic, but I wanted to clarify my views before proceeding. Now, while I may usually disapprove of this form, I believe I should answer Supah's post point-by-point.

Quote[/b] ]Marco Pastors thinks some people steal because they are Muslim and the quran says its ok to steal from non believers. I think people steal because they have no basic respect for other peoples property. If Marco Pastors was right then why arent all Muslims thiefs? Theft is the result of a personal decision made by a criminal to rather take from others what he is to lazy to work for himself no matter what excuse he likes to make afterwards for it about the quran saying its ok.

As a matter of fact, Pastors has said quite a lot of things over the past two years. Every single time he has managed to promote the 'we-they' thinking and treat the Islamic community as if it were a single, homogeneous creature. When accused of generalising the Muslims he answered: "Yes, because they do the same when they see fit". The opinions you have stated on Muslims in this thread strike me as quite similar, hence the comparison. Which is odd, seeing as (if I am to believe your political orientation) you are at the opposites of the political spectrum.

Quote[/b] ]To believe everything that is written in books is equally ignorant. If you were to read Pim Fortuyns book and believe the whole of it you would get a pretty distorted view of the netherlands too. Calling people ignorant and prejudiced is a rather childish debating tactic.

I concur, believing something unconditionally is wrong, full stop. Still, it is better to base one's opinions on research than on anecdotal evidence. Incidentally, my mention of ignorance and prejudice was not a 'debating tactic' but my opinion. I'm sorry, but saying that the riots in France are caused by Jihadists while there is no proof for that (except for the shouting of individual youths, who would say anything to provoke the police) fits the definition of ignorant and prejudiced. Do you remember the British punk-movement in the early 80's? The Sex Pistols, amongst others? They wore swastika-emblems on their jackets. Why? Because they wanted to shock and provoke. Not because they were nazi's.

Quote[/b] ]If you want to believe that Islamic radicalisme amongst youths has nothing to do with these problems and as long as their given more and more help this will all be over then believe what you want. Having heard how these people react to law enforcement from first hand accounts I know how these people percieve everything aimed at lessening crime as "systematic humiliation" as soon as the persons caught is one of their ethnic community. I used to live in one of the worst area's of Leeuwarden where pre emptive frisking was common. They stopped everyone, me included, I didn't mind. I had nothing to hide. But when they stopped a muslim man wearing a full length Islamic dress they emmediatly go "You are singling me out because of how I look!" even though they were frisking EVERYONE going into and out of a certain area. Whites were being frisked to left and right but these people just keep up the "You are discriminating against me!" exercise. These people have a very short fuse and if a police officer as much as looks in their direction their being singled out and discriminated. Their "The police is always in our neighbourhood harrasing us!" act is shallow and dimwitted as the police is in that neighbourhood because their youths hang around on streetcorners at night shouting abuse at people, scratching cars in parking lots and where ever they hang out people start getting mugged in dark spots, how very peculiar a coincidence.

The above paragraph left me somewhat baffled. What do you mean by 'these problems'? The riots in France? You link some isolated experience in the Netherlands to the violence in France? How? And how do you establish the link between the Islam and the behaviour of these youths, whether in the Netherlands or in France? This is a prime example of ignoratio elenchi:

1) Youths are causing problems.

2) Some of these youths were brought up with the Islam.

3) Therefore, Islam causes problems.

Allow me to further illustrate the fallacy of your reasoning. I live in a relatively 'bad' neighbourhood in Haarlem, where the percentage of immigrants from North Africa and Turkey is high. I find these people to be very polite, helpful and industrious. Using your logic, I should be able to extrapolate my isolated and statistically insignificant experience with these people and superimpose it on all the North African immigrants in the Netherlands. I can then say they are all polite and friendly, just as you claim they are all lazy and have a short fuse, based upon your own isolated experience. Now, which one of us would be right? Neither, of course. Anecdotal evidence, or 'illustration by storytelling', is useless.

Quote[/b] ]Their economic situation is partly of their own making. If you hang out on street corners all night instead of studying because you have this preconception you will be discriminated against you are making your own self full filling prophecy. You won't have a decent education and you won't get a decent job but hey who cares you can always claim you are being discriminated against. Is this rioting going to improve their situation? No ofcourse not. All the inhabitants that DO try to make something of their lives possessions and businesses are burning to the ground nightly. Too give into violence now is to give yourself a "gift" that will keep on "giving".

I agree, it is your own responsibility to make the best of your life. Nobody's talking about 'giving in' to violence. It's funny how you associate the refusal to blame the events on the Islam with some sort of appeasement. They are breaking the law, and they should be stopped by all means necessary. Acknowledging the true causes of their behaviour has nothing to do with apologism.

Quote[/b] ]If this is just about socio economic standing why arent europe's asian minorities having these problems? They came from societies with different cultures then those of western europe. Do they have the same crime problem? Do they have the same problems with participating in society? Do they feel as discriminated against? Maybe you should have watched some of the news coverage from journalist who infiltrated the rioting groups. You dont hear many calls to improve their socio economic standing, I dont hear many calls for labour reforms, school scholarships and police reform. I hear calls for Jihad, Holy war, Kill the unbelievers and allah akhbar. This rioting does nothing to improve their socio economic standing and is totally counter productive.

There is no debating the uselessness of their actions. Has anyone in this thread tried to defend the riots? Furthermore, you would do well to take a look at the history of immigration. The problems we are experiencing now also happened in the fifties, but then the troublemakers were Italian immigrants (I'm talking about the Netherlands btw). Maybe you would like to say that their being Catholic was the cause? Of course not. It was because they were seen and treated like 2nd rate citizens. Just like North African immigrants are being treated now.

[SPQR 0]

Like everyone being at least slightly in touch with the matter (read : french ), I'll just insist on the fact none of the revendication of these rioters are religious. Religion is absolutely not related in this matter, bare the fact that these guys feel rejected partially because they're muslim (and also because they're not white, they're young, etc...).

Assuming this is driven by islamic fundamentalism is being mislead (or an anti-islam bias?)

One of these is not like the other:

Quote[/b] ]WHY PARIS IS BURNING

By AMIR TAHERI

Fri Nov 4, 6:00 AM ET

Zuruzuru zuruzuru ....

Amir Taheri, editor of the French quarterly "Politique internationale," is a member of Benador Associates.

What a funny text written by somebody who never visit the grounds  

I asked myself who is this famous expert I’ve never seen in top-notch debatting TV broadcasts in France. Amir Taheri belongs to Benador Associates, founded by :

Quote[/b] ] Elena Benador is a young  “press attaché†of Peruvian origin. The “customers†of its cabinet form a homogeneous group of personalities promoting the attack of Iraq, the overthrow of the prince regent of Saudi Arabia, the redrawing of the borders in the Middle East and the deportation of the Palestinians. The majority of these “customers†are Americans or Israeliâ€. It is the same cabinet which is at the origin of the fallacious charges pronounced by Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Chatila, accusing in January 2003 Libya “to be the most advanced Arab State as regards military nuclear researchâ€.

this point of view is also debattable, as many sources just copy-and-paste the same text, like Fox New with Associated Press, whom works seem to me suddenly more serious than Benador’s band trash work...

While some Taheri’s use some trivial past real events, his perception and conclusions are pretty silly, except for far right winged. Here are some extracts easy to refute :

Quote[/b] ]Bands of youths in balaclavas start by setting fire to parked cars, break shop windows with baseball bats, wreck public telephones and ransack cinemas, libraries and schools. When the police arrive on the scene, the rioters attack them with stones, knives and baseball bats.

Will they soon set on fire the Eiffel tower itself ? Yes many things were destroyed, with whatever they can find or steal (car as rams to get in some buildings), even some schools, mostly nursery schools (that the top bold act from them), but no cinemas or libraries (places of culture) as there are none in those places. But it seems to be great from the author to make a bond with the Nazi’s Night of Crystal or any autodafe made against Culture. “Barbarians are coming, Rome is going to fall...†When the Police arrive, the rioters are used to throw stones, bottles,.. anything small enough in order to not getting arrested (as huge objects as washing machines and TV sets for exemple thrown from the upper floors of a building). They’d better have a real mass superiory against 2 or 3 policemen to fight in close combat with knives and bats... unless it is a poor civilian, taking pictures of a streetlamp for his firm, killed with bare-hands and kicks, in front of the victim’s family wainting in their car. They just have the boldness of the cowards.

The police respond by firing tear-gas grenades and, on occasions, blank shots in the air. Sometimes the youths fire back — with real bullets.

Very few shots were fired, a couple from pistols (I guess, inquiries may tell it better than me), and recently small lead pellets from shotguns. No AK-47, no RPG, it’s not Gaza’s strip !

News : last night, shotgun fired at a group of 30 policemen, approached by a group of around 200 people - 2 policemen wounded.

Quote[/b] ]How did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week, a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: stealing parts of parked cars.

Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened, as the police have not been present in that suburb for years.

The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something — which meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them.

Once the police arrived on the scene, the youths — who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years — got really angry. A brief chase took place in the street, and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned-off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted.

Once news of their deaths was out, Clichy was all up in arms.

Apparently, as things seem not to be clear and many things are told from what look like a new urban rumour, the Police was called for a buglary. A group of youth was going to have their papers controled when they separated and flee (they get used to flee from, or spit to or insult the Police, some say because they fear policemen’s flawed acts). Then things become unclear as some tell they were pursued, some tell not... 3 boys entered in the power pylon area. 2 got killed, the third was badly wounded, but had enough strength to come back one victim’s family home to tell what happened (according to him). The riots started not when the new come to the others ears, but when the authorities said that the boys were not pursued. Other riots look like today more as copycats than a growing and organized global riot leading to a civil war, apparently dreamed by extrem minds.

Quote[/b] ]With cries of "God is great," bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee.

As I wrote earlier in a previous post, those rioters don’t act for a religion, and often don’t know the slightest thing about their parents’ own religion. They shout “God is greatâ€, not because they are faithfull, but because it’s fashion, cool and make them feel as if they were palestinians, thanks to some long term peaceful politics from a well known state.

The UOIF (Union des Organisations Islamiques de France i.e. Islamic Organizations of France Union) have just today broadcated a fatwa/ condemning the current criminal acts,  and ordering to cease those activities unrelated with faith. We’ll see if this fatwa gives some results. If not, it will definitively proove that Islam in not related to these riots.

Post Scriptum : Policemen fighting those riots don’t flee, they are ordered to retreat. Give them orders, and you’ll see some boys running faster than light, give them orders and they be able to stand firm under a rain of stones. But you must have work with the Police to know these facts and who they really are. Everybody has not Merkavas to hide behind its armour...

Quote[/b] ]The French authorities could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from French territory. So they hit back — sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.

The CRS, or the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (Security Republican Companies), are policemen trained for area securing and riots control (even fighting if needed), not an unknown and secret special force acting undr the command of a black cabinet. Among those policemen, some of them worked on french beaches during summer as watchmen and life savers. Nice buddies, even if they are not as charming as Pamela Anderson/C.J. Parker  in “Baywatch†TV serie  

Quote[/b] ]That policy worked as long as immigrants came to France in drips and drops and thus could merge into a much larger mainstream. Assimilation, however, cannot work when in most schools in the affected areas, fewer than 20 percent of the pupils are native French speakers.

Reading that, one could imagine that our suburbs are only inhabited by foreigners, regrouped in isolated community inside France. But if many of their parents have another nationality, those young rioters were born in France, thus being immediatly french citizens (often having both, french and their parents’ nationality). They were raise in french nursery schools, and so on, so they speak french as fluently as the small vocabulary can help them (for those who quit school early).

These bullshit aslo hide the fact that many of them work hard and try to better their own and their parents living standards, and while unrelated to this violence may suffer from the image casted by a few scums.

Quote[/b] ]Radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin," such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, to close down, and seized control of much of the local administration.

Something happened once and is here exaggerated. Unless making a mistake, as it is an old story, a “french†shopkeeper retired, and a new one of north africa origin decided, while opening his shop, not to sell alcohols and porks. That’s all. As I wrote earlier, suburb cities haven’t usually dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, and other social places are often destroyed by riot than closed by radicals. Mosques are often managed by associations where only the iman wear a beard

Quote[/b] ]All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheiks, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

While one or two individuals may seek to place themselves as “negociators, the people trying to calm down things, prosecuted by the author of the upper sh.t, are mostly parents, local imans, french highest religious leaders and young adults, called “big brothers†by their younger kins.

Another story, illustrating the fact that arsoning and riots can hardly be related to religious war and israeli-palestinian conflict, several months ago, 3 girls wanted to get a revenge against a fourth one, set  postal boxes afire, resulting to an arson that killed many people. No scarf in the story

So, I know somebody who’d better post nothing

Or maybe she’s bothering, as the topic about her messy land interest nobody no more, tired to knock their head against the same wall  

Even if there is a strong feud between thunderbird84, as many can remember, I currently do agree with him at 300%  

With Whisper too    

[berghoff 11]

:/ I wonder why they haven't let the army deal with this I mean wtf, they beat up an 60 year old man, fire at police men and setting nearly everything on fire and this is going on for awhile jeez.

[ran 0]

:/ I wonder why they haven't let the army deal with this I mean wtf, they beat up an 60 year old man, fire at police men and setting nearly everything on fire and this is going on for awhile jeez.

Military action on french soil against french citizens is a little bit problematic ...

[SpongeBob 0]

:/ I wonder why they haven't let the army deal with this I mean wtf, they beat up an 60 year old man, fire at police men and setting nearly everything on fire and this is going on for awhile jeez.  

Military action on french soil against french citizens is a little bit problematic ...

So invite "zee Germans" to help you.  Or Team America, World Police, if you don't mind having a few of your landmarks blown to bits.

[berghoff 11]

:/ I wonder why they haven't let the army deal with this I mean wtf, they beat up an 60 year old man, fire at police men and setting nearly everything on fire and this is going on for awhile jeez.

Military action on french soil against french citizens is a little bit problematic ...

I ddin't mean that o_O. But I hope the police gets the situation under control.

[ran 0]

In my opinion, Police is able to put an end to the violence or at least to make a good show of force cooling down the heated minds a bit... it's just a politician lacking guts.

You have to understant that military action in such context of civil unrest has caused more harm than good in the past.