Rioting in Paris

[Michael Z]

It's incredible to me how everyone in the WORLD bashes Bush for Katrina and Iraq and everything else... but who is condemning Chirac?

Isn't it obvious?  Bush has made enemies of the vast majority of people in the entire world.  Most people hate him, many quite passionately.  Chirac on the other hand people don't mind, since he's never done any harm.

I would strongly refute that last point. Remember the controversy Chirac sparked with the atomic tests in Mururoa Atoll? He wasn't exactly popular back then.

[opebo]

It's incredible to me how everyone in the WORLD bashes Bush for Katrina and Iraq and everything else... but who is condemning Chirac?

Isn't it obvious?  Bush has made enemies of the vast majority of people in the entire world.  Most people hate him, many quite passionately.  Chirac on the other hand people don't mind, since he's never done any harm.

OK, I should've said 'relatively speaking'.  Certainly most people in the world, if they even knew who he was, would say he has done far less harm than Bush.

I would strongly refute that last point. Remember the controversy Chirac sparked with the atomic tests in Mururoa Atoll? He wasn't exactly popular back then.

[Middle-aged Europe]

It's incredible to me how everyone in the WORLD bashes Bush for Katrina and Iraq and everything else... but who is condemning Chirac?

Isn't it obvious?  Bush has made enemies of the vast majority of people in the entire world.  Most people hate him, many quite passionately.  Chirac on the other hand people don't mind, since he's never done any harm.

I would strongly refute that last point. Remember the controversy Chirac sparked with the atomic tests in Mururoa Atoll? He wasn't exactly popular back then.

Ah, those were times. I think I can still remember the "Fu** Chirac!" t-shirts some wore in my school back then. Incredible how long the old wanker is in office now. But just imagine how unpopular he would be, had he decided to invade Iraq.

[WMS]

I don't think it's possible to know anything about the situation and be symphathetic towards either the rioters or the various branches of the French Government.

Yep. Nailed it in one, Al.

So far no one has been killed in the ensuing unrest, although at least two people have been badly burnt by Molotov cocktails: a fireman, and a handicapped woman unable to get off an ambushed bus. A 61-year-old was also in a coma after being hit by an assailant in a public housing estate.

Ah, setting handicapped people on fire. Such nice poor misunderstood urban youths.

[John Dibble]

A big difference between this and Katrina is no one has died.

Reuters News Story

Anyways, even if there wasn't a death till now there have been a number of severe injuries, so a death would still be pretty much inevitable until this rioting is stopped.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Is it going to kill over 1300 people though? Not likely.

[John Dibble]

No, not likely, but still this is a disaster and the French government needs to stop it. It might have been stopped earlier on with a sufficient response, preventing these deaths and injuries. This isn't like Katrina in many ways - Katrina hit, did its damage, and left. This on the other hand is ongoing and you can't wait for it to finish to react.

[Bono]

Raincy establishes curfew and in Asnières the city is organizing vigilance comitees to help the police

Socialist Mayor of Noisy-le-Grand calls for the army to intervene

[Bono]

As one can tell from the photo,
 Clichy-sous-Bois is a city without any living conditions, where the French government has dumped muslims.

On the other hand, the Portuguese neighbourhoods from the 60s,

 
were the best there was, which explains why the portuguese never torched cars, schools or people.

[Bono]

Young alter-gloibalist activist who failed cocktal molotov preparing and throwing class.


AP Photo

[Bono]

Wake up, Europe, you've a war on your hands,
by Mark Steyn

The notion that Texas neocon arrogance was responsible for frosting up trans-Atlantic relations was always preposterous, even for someone as complacent and blinkered as John Kerry. If you had millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city, would you be so eager to send your troops into an Arab country fighting alongside the Americans? For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness.

(ver mais)

The French have been here before, of course. Seven-thirty-two. Not 7:32 Paris time, which is when the nightly Citroen-torching begins, but 732 A.D. -- as in one and a third millennia ago. By then, the Muslims had advanced a thousand miles north of Gibraltar to control Spain and southern France up to the banks of the Loire. In October 732, the Moorish general Abd al-Rahman and his Muslim army were not exactly at the gates of Paris, but they were within 200 miles, just south of the great Frankish shrine of St. Martin of Tours. Somewhere on the road between Poitiers and Tours, they met a Frankish force and, unlike other Christian armies in Europe, this one held its ground "like a wall . . . a firm glacial mass," as the Chronicle of Isidore puts it. A week later, Abd al-Rahman was dead, the Muslims were heading south, and the French general, Charles, had earned himself the surname "Martel" -- or "the Hammer."

(...)

Battles are very straightforward: Side A wins, Side B loses. But the French government is way beyond anything so clarifying. Today, a fearless Muslim advance has penetrated far deeper into Europe than Abd al-Rahman. They're in Brussels, where Belgian police officers are advised not to be seen drinking coffee in public during Ramadan, and in Malmo, where Swedish ambulance drivers will not go without police escort. It's way too late to rerun the Battle of Poitiers. In the no-go suburbs, even before these current riots, 9,000 police cars had been stoned by "French youths" since the beginning of the year; some three dozen cars are set alight even on a quiet night. "There's a civil war under way in Clichy-sous-Bois at the moment," said Michel Thooris of the gendarmes' trade union Action Police CFTC. "We can no longer withstand this situation on our own. My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical or theoretical training for street fighting."

What to do? In Paris, while "youths" fired on the gendarmerie, burned down a gym and disrupted commuter trains, the French Cabinet split in two, as the "minister for social cohesion" (a Cabinet position I hope America never requires) and other colleagues distance themselves from the interior minister, the tough-talking Nicolas Sarkozy who dismissed the rioters as "scum." President Chirac seems to have come down on the side of those who feel the scum's grievances need to be addressed. He called for "a spirit of dialogue and respect." As is the way with the political class, they seem to see the riots as an excellent opportunity to scuttle Sarkozy's presidential ambitions rather than as a call to save the Republic.

(...)

If Chirac isn't exactly Charles Martel, the rioters aren't doing a bad impression of the Muslim armies of 13 centuries ago: They're seizing their opportunities, testing their foe, probing his weak spots. If burning the 'burbs gets you more "respect" from Chirac, they'll burn 'em again, and again. In the current issue of City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple concludes a piece on British suicide bombers with this grim summation of the new Europe: "The sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced by the nightmare of permanent conflict." Which sounds an awful lot like a new Dark Ages.

[Bono]

Cars set afire in Berlin and Bremen

[Bono]

Why Some Riot and Some Do Not

While “angry French youths” burn down their neighborhoods, including their public transport buses and schools, Polish plumbers, construction workers and nurses are too busy to be angry.

[Storebought]

I wonder how long it will be before an authentic suicide bomber makes his first appearance in Paris?

[AuH2O]

Katrina was a natural disaster. This is man-made. That's the difference.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Could you all calm down please?

Anyway, there's been an interesting development that you all seem to have missed for some strange reason:

The Union of Islamic Organisations in France (I think this is basically a French version of the MCB) has issued a fatwa which says that:

"It is strictly forbidden for any Muslim... to take part in any action that strikes blindly at private or public property or that could threaten the lives of others"

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Katrina was a natural disaster. This is man-made. That's the difference.

Good Lord I actually agree with you...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No, not likely, but still this is a disaster and the French government needs to stop it. It might have been stopped earlier on with a sufficient response, preventing these deaths and injuries.

Very true. The rioting could have been over in a couple of days if the government had actually tried to calm things down and all that. Methinks it may be too late for that now.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

True. And most nights are worse than the night before and so on. Things could get pretty grim.

[AuH2O]

What the French government apparently does not understand is that French people probably would like for their country to stop burning down. In the next election, that displeasure is going to be made VERY clear.

I have a feeling a lot of people aren't going to like the results...

[afleitch]

What the French government apparently does not understand is that French people probably would like for their country to stop burning down. In the next election, that displeasure is going to be made VERY clear.

I have a feeling a lot of people aren't going to like the results...

No doubt the same thing as 2002 come 2007, that is the FN candidate coming in either second or third. But they won't make much impact on the legislative elections.

[AuH2O]

Think again.

Obviously, the FN won't 'win' the elections outright, that's impossible. But the FN will make the Presidential runoff and get a decent number of legislative seats.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But the FN will make the Presidential runoff

Possible... but not certain or even especially likely.
The Socialist candidate (whoever it is) should get through to the runoff this time around as the left will be less prone to pointless protest-voting than the last election for several reasons (the party is no longer sharing power... and because of what happend last election) and both Sarkozy and de Villepin seem dert certs to run.
O/c there's always the possibility of both Gaullists polling about 15% each, the Socialist about 18% and the Vichy candidate about 16%, resulting in a runoff between the PS and FN candidates and another lopsided defeat for the FN (although not to the extent of the last election).

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Very hard to see them gaining many due to the electoral system... they could win a couple of seats I guess.

[J. J.]

This is exactly the kind of thing that will Fascism back to Europe.  There have some reports of rioting in Germany.  Lewis, any thing there?

[Bono]

This is exactly the kind of thing that will Fascism back to Europe.  There have some reports of rioting in Germany.  Lewis, any thing there?

Cars set afire in Berlin and Bremen

[??????????]

If the cops or military started gunning down some of these scum as an example to the others this whole fiasco would end quickly. When did Europe lose their balls? I swear, I doubt even London would stand aside and let this trash go on unabetted.