Of all the things I am grateful for, one of them is that I am not in Paris - or, indeed, any major city in France.
The riots, which started October 27 in a northern suburb of Paris, soon spread to other impoverished Parisian banlieues and have now, after the 11th consecutive night, consumed other metropolises in France, including Dijon, Rouen, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Nice.
The riots ensued after two North African teenagers were electrocuted in a substation in the Parisian enclave of Clichy-sous-Bois in an attempt to hide from pursuing policemen. The two teens, police suspected, had been involved in a robbery.
This event seems to have been the last straw for French Muslims - a good-sized number of them North African immigrants - as nationwide riots have become de facto events. Even neighbouring countries Germany and Italy are worried about a trickle-down event amongst their Muslim populations.
President Jacques Chirac has appealed for peace but has also left no room for doubt that punishment is forthcoming and will be severe.
"The law must have the last word," Chirac warned. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has also been talking tough, referring to the rioters as "scum" and promising to "clean up" the suburbs. Muslim youths are not giving in, continuing to torch cars, firebomb schools and churches, and throw Molotov cocktails at police forces.
It would appear that the time is right for Chirac, Sarkozy and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to declare martial law and start delivering on the promise of tough action. Poverty and unemployment in the working-class estates in France is no excuse for out-of-control rioting, which has now been fed by drug traffickers and Islamic militants.
But there is a reason why all this disorder has exploded in France. For all its socialist liberalism, as with most of Europe, France has failed to integrate Muslim immigrants into society, where they have mostly been looked down upon. As aforementioned, poverty and unemployment in run-down ghetto towns where they live is rife. Also, immigrants from North Africa are used to clearly defined rules of behavior. The culture shock they suffer when living in Europe, where the rules aren't so delineated, causes them to cling even more to Islam, breeding fundamentalism. Unemployment plus fanaticism equals disaster. The Muslim community in France needs opportunity, and that's exactly what they've been lacking for decades.
Article comments
1 - noanchorbabies
The French are now reaping the predictable results of their devotion to the false PC "diversity" ideal of multiculturalism. Why false? Because a multiculturalist society, if it does not lead to civil war, will ultimately result in a homogenization spelling the end of all diversity.
If it's the preservation of diversity that you're really interested in, that can only be achieved by having a community of nations proud enough of their respective religious, racial, linguistic, and social identities to resist the kind of infiltration by alien populations that threatens to undermine and ultimately destroy those unique identities - as the stupidly invited Mulsim invasion now threatens to do to the entire European continent.
The Muslim populations of France, Britain, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, etc. now need to be invited to return to the countries they came from. I would suggest paying them to go home. The alternative to whatever that cost might be, is at best generations of bloody conflict, and at worst ultimate subjugation to an Islamic theocracy, once the rapidly outbreeding Muslims attain majority status.
2 - Z.Z. Bachman
The chickens are now coming home to roost in the realm of Central Europeasment philosophy. There is no more greater proponent of that flawed historical weakness that has plagued Central Europe than the holier than thou and self righteous attitude of the Chirac government. Notice what all that cozing up to Iranian, Syrian, former Iraqi, and other anti-Zionist governments in the Middle East has bought the French? An exodus of displaced and frustrated Northern African immigrants who immigrate to the very countries that appear to be seen as more aligned with and in sympatico with the more radical Islamic governments. Hmmm... is there a connection here? Viva la Liberty ! Until you begin to burn down our cities that is....
3 - Mark Edward Manning
I do agree that France has mollycoddled its immigrant population but they had no choice but to allow immigration from their colonial possessions. Maybe it's from the guilt trip they felt - much the same happened with Britain as well.
Anyway, I just feel that if the Muslim population as a whole had opportunities, it might not have come to this. It's no justification for the riots - I want to see all perpetrators squashed, believe me. But France must shoulder some of the blame for the current situation.
And, clearly, France's support for the Palestinians and opposition to the Iraq War has failed to keep them from Islamic terror.
But, if the converse is true, as I believe it may well be, that Muslims in Europe just won't integrate, then that is a different ballgame.
4 - Nancy
They won't, they don't, and they don't want to. Perhaps the best solution would be to round them all up & return them to whence they came. I guarantee they would appreciate France a helluva lot more once they got back to the sinkholes they stem from.
5 - Baronius
France is uniquely ripe for this sort of problem. It has the strangest combination of multiculturalism and arrogance. France embraced the open-immigration statism we see in other European nations, which has resulted in dozens of Sowetos. But France never experienced (or admitted to) the post-war demoralization as experienced by England, Germany obviously, and the United States during the Vietnam era.
I think Americans see French pride mainly in their foreign policy. But these supposed multiculturalists are absolute imperialists when it comes to their language. Their French internet is cutting them off from the world. Ireland, on the other hand, has seen huge growth in international markets because of their well-educated English-speaking population.
The most disturbing part of this story (if you're not getting firebombed in Paris) is the ignorance or political correctness in the news coverage. News stories don't explain - aren't aware of? - the one connection between "Arab youths" and "black Africans". Hint: Algeria ain't Presbyterian. Oddly, French officials seem to be mute about the religious dimension as well. The really bad news for Europe is that, while France may be a uniquely perfect tinderbox, Muslim zealots don't think in terms of borders.
6 - tommyd
Anyone who gloats at the French today is just a severe hypocrite. And let it be known that the French government offered aid to America after the Katrina debacle, regardless if one French journalist laughed at America. Jeeeeezuss has anyone heard the so-called right wing nuts gloating at the French today?? They are fucking idiots for doing such.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of France and the French people, the fact still remains that America created a disatrous debacle of death in illegally attacking Iraq. Riots in France don't absolve the US in the Iraq war. The French remain right on that fact that the war was completely unecessary at that point in history.
And for chrisssakess! The United States believes in multiculturalism like a religion, maybe even moreso than the French, so don't take shots at the French because they're such dedicated multiculturalists. France has it's problems but if Americans gloat at them or call them "appeasers" you're all just inviting disaster on yourselves.
America has enough of it's own serious problems that need to be dealt with before laughing at anyone else.
7 - Nancy
Mark, what do you mean by "France has failed to integrate..."? Why is it the responsibility of France to integrate anyone? Isn't it the responsibility of those moving there to integrate themselves, to learn the language, the customs, history, etc.? You can't move to China & be shocked when you find out everyone there is Chinese, Chinese is the national language, everyone eats Chinese food, etc. - unless of course you're so stupid & insular yourself that it never occurred to you before you made the move - in which case, whose fault is that, your or the Chinese?
8 - tommyd
GRANDE MANIFESTATION
En présence de Jean-Marie LE PEN
LUNDI 14 NOVEMBRE 2005 - 18h30
Place du Palais Royal
75001 Paris
« Immigration, émeutes, explosions des banlieues : ASSEZ ! »
Grand Protest with Jean-Marie Le Pen in attendence, Monday 14 November in Place du Palais Royal, Paris.
"Immigration, riots, explosion of the suburbs: ENOUGH!"
Here's to the heroic Le Pen. He has been right for decades about the non-white immigration disaster and was always unfairly called a racist and fascist. Well, I call him a prophet. May the French find the leaders like LePen who will lead to a more sane France and put the French people's best interest FIRST!
Vive le Pen!! Vive la France!
9 - noanchorbabies
Mark claims: "France ... had no choice but to allow immigration from their colonial possessions."
Really? Why do you say that? Who was forcing them?
They better rid themselves fast of these African Muslims and get control of their borders, if they don't want to see "liberty, equality, and fraternity" replaced with "submission, jihad, and sharia"
A payoff to emmigrate would enable them to reduce the numbers from ten million to a few hundred thousand who were sufficiently loyal to French values that they would choose to stay rather than accept the money.
10 - Mark Edward Manning
Maybe writing that France had "no choice" but to allow immigrants from its colonies was bad wording, but it seemed to make sense at the time. They probably valued the cheap labor. Or they felt shame for the colonial past and wanted to extend citizenship to these colonial residents. Who can say?
For the record, I was playing devil's advocate here. I don't have a problem with what a lot of people have been saying here. Nancy, Noanchorbabies, Z.Z. Bachman, Barionus and tommyd, I understand your points and agree with them. If these jihadic Muslim agitators could be kicked out of Europe, it would solve many problems. I wouldn't be protesting that move at all. After all, I thought it was clear from this article that I'm on the side of the French.
But, still, to play devil's advocate again, I can't help but wonder if France's strange politics have contributed to the situation. This goes back decades, remember. If these immigrants had been valued and employed in large numbers since the '60s, and an entrenched Muslim middle-class in France had emerged, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened.
However, I assure you, if it's a case of the Muslim community making unreasonable demands while wilfully refusing to contribute to society and assimilate, then that is indeed their sorry fault and they should be expelled for the troublemakers they are.
11 - noanchorbabies
"If these immigrants had been valued and employed in large numbers since the '60s, and an entrenched Muslim middle-class in France had emerged, I'm sure this wouldn't have happened."
Maybe the small number who immigrated in those early days DID assimilate and ARE productively employed and valued. I can't imagine that there isn't a single well-educated and respected Muslim in the whole country. Perhaps France's immigration problem is similar to our Hispanic one - namely a sharp recent spike to invasion level numbers. Immigration has to be SLOW in order to promote assimilation. If it goes massively ballistic then whole autonomous communities will spring up, removing any need or motivation for assimilation.
You can be sure that the same idiots who maintain that the French government hasn't "done enough" to "encourage" assimilation, would be objecting to the high heavens if any effective attempt was made to break up these enclaves and disperse the immigrants throughout the general population where they might have some hope of assimilating!
12 - Frenchy
Sacrebleuuuuuuuuuu!
Quel horrors! What am I to dueeeeeee? Zese crazy muslims burned down the place where i get my welfare! What am I to dueeeeeee??? Let zem eat zere cake! Oh vy does reality always have to intrude on my leetle French parrrrttyyyyy!
Alors!
Frenchy
13 - Luke
All because a couple of dumb fucks electrocuted themselves
14 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
In order to integrate a minority successfully into a society, you need an integrative mechanism.
You Americans used the public school system until you allowed the "new leftists" and pc fanatics to have their way with their infantile mentality and ideas.
We Israelis had the army - until the secular fanatics started filling their shorts at all the observant Jews who joined and climbed their way up the officer corps.
The French do not appear to have had any mechanism at all. Nor did they even seem to think one was even necessary. The big blind spot of the French is their assumption that their couture is so superieure that anyone would naturally adapt to it and abandon their own.
That may have been true 300 years ago - but it isn't now. Of course, the trouble with blind spots is that you can't see a two by four coming at you through it.
15 - Eric Olsen
extremely high unemployment in the young minority population, no prospects of that improving, boredom, resentment, lack of assimilation.
And Luke, it's called a tipping point
16 - Mark Edward Manning
"You Americans used the public school system until you allowed the 'new leftists' and pc fanatics to have their way with their infantile mentality and ideas."
Guilty as charged, Ruvy. That's exactly how I feel too. All the new leftists, burned out from LSD, too over the educational establishment, and therein is where the real problem in the U.S. lies.
17 - Aidan Maconachy
The French model is part of this problem. In the States and Canada citizenship means what it says - equal partnership. Despite the generous social services in France it remains a two-tiered society.
Under these circumstances of course N.Africans seem threatening because they haven't been assimilated and are therefore still "foreign". The logic of creating these massive sink estates in which to warehouse these people is just plain nuts.
Also anyone who has spent any time in France knows that racism is alive and well there, but is practiced in a rather sophisticated fashion. I know "sophisticated racist" sounds like an oxymoron, but in fact the French are very good at this type of thing.
You may recall that not so long ago the French Ambassador to the UK let slip the "dirty little country" remark in reference to Israel. He thought the comment was off-the-record of course. This type of commentary reflects the mindset of some, even those in authority, whose hypocrisy may now be coming back to haunt them.
While the Islamist factor can't be discounted in all of this , racism also remains a problem in France and no forward looking democratic nation in this day and age can afford to allow ingrained racism to remain unchallenged.