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Cars torched as Paris suburb riots spread
Youth unrest causes growing strains within French government
Updated: 6:48 a.m. ET Nov. 2, 2005
PARIS - Dozens of vehicles were set ablaze in a sixth night of rioting in poor Paris suburbs, officials said on Wednesday, as youth unrest caused mounting strains within France’s conservative government.
A heavy police presence kept a tense order in Clichy-sous-Bois, where the clashes broke out last week after two teenagers of African origin were electrocuted while apparently fleeing the police.
But the street fighting spread to other parts of the poor suburbs ringing the eastern side of the capital, police said. A total of 34 people were detained by police overnight, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio.
Strains appear within government
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin urged a return to calm on Tuesday evening after meeting families of the two youths along with Sarkozy, his main political rival now under heavy fire for his tough line against the rioters.
Squabbling broke out within Villepin’s government when Equal Opportunities Minister Azouz Begag openly criticized Sarkozy for calling the protesting youths “scum.”
“I talk with real words,” Sarkozy fired back in an interview in the daily Le Parisien. “When someone shoots at policemen, he’s not just a ‘youth’, he’s a lout, full stop.”
Villepin delayed for several hours his planned departure for for a visit to Canada on Wednesday, officials said, and French media reported President Jacques Chirac was expected to make a statement about the unrest at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Tear gas attack
The unrest in the eastern suburbs, heavily populated by North African and black African minorities, was sparked by youths’ frustration at their failure to get jobs and recognition in French society.
A tear gas attack on a mosque further inflamed emotions.
Villepin and Sarkozy are locked in an increasingly tense battle to lead the right in the 2007 presidential election.
The opposition Socialists have denounced Sarkozy’s policies.
“Perhaps it is up to the prime minister to step in, to put slightly to one side this excited interior minister,” Socialist Party National Secretary Malek Boutih told i-television.
Sarkozy promised on Monday to put more police on the streets as part of his “zero tolerance” policy toward violence.
The Clichy unrest was the latest in a series of incidents in the Paris suburbs that have attracted the attention of Sarkozy and become the target of his vow to get tough on crime.
In June, an 11-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet in the northern area of La Courneuve. The eastern suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine made headlines in 2002 when a 17-year-old girl was set alight by an 18-year-old boy.
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Hmmm socialist country? High unemployment? Discontented youth? Wonder why those things all go together like bacon, eggs and toast.
Oh, interestingly enough, Reuters neglects to mention that the rioters are predominantly Muslims refusing to integrate into French society.
France Is Burning
Items About Areas That Could Break Out Into War
November 1, 2005: France is burning. For most of the last week, there have been nasty riots in the Parisian suburb of St Denis, complete with fires and many casualties. This area is home to about 500,000 Moslems. Many largely Moslem suburbs of Paris, and other large cities, have become no-go zones for the police, and anyone who is not of Middle Eastern origin. Over the last three decades, generous social benefits and immigration policies have left France with a Moslem population of some five million (about eight percent of the population.) High rise housing for them was built on the outskirts of major cities. Most of these Moslems did not try to assimilate, and by maintaining their old country culture and language, they made it more difficult for their kids to get jobs. Among the old school customs practiced is attacking, and even murdering, girls who do not conform to a “Moslem” style of behavior. While jobs may be lacking, crime and social welfare payments are not. So people can live without jobs, and make a little extra with some crime on the side. But when you have a lot of people participating in, or just condoning, criminal behavior, you have a very dangerous place for outsiders. Officially, the government condemns this sort of “profiling,” but a look at crime statistics shows that high rates of robbery, murder and rape tend to coincide with Moslem areas. There are unofficial maps on the Internet, where French citizens can check about where not to get lost the next time they go for a drive.
Meanwhile, the high crime rates in the Moslem neighborhoods has been spilling over into non-Moslem areas, and there has been a major outbreak of anti-Semitic attacks on Jews, and Jewish targets (synagogues, cemeteries, Etc.). It’s not only become embarrassing for the government, but it’s become a political issue. So the Interior Ministry has established special police units to try and reduce the crime rate in the Moslem areas. That has led to the recent rioting, arson, injuries, and advice by French traditionalists to just ignore the French Moslems. Leave them alone. Ignore them. Just like France has been doing for decades. Let the counter-terrorism police take care of any hotheads. But for the moment, the Interior Ministry is run by law-and-order types, and they are determined to at least own the streets in Moslem areas. So France burns.
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How long before the French go the Dutch route and decide that their liberalism must be tempered by crackdowns on illegal Muslim immigration and strict limits on legal immigration?
You're going to see this happen in other European cities with sizable Muslim populations. They don't want to confirm to their host countries society. They want the host country to confirm to their standards and just look at what those standards are.
The trouble is only spreading in France. 9 towns now have significant Muslim rioting and unrest.
Unrest spreads to nine French towns
Rioting continues in suburban Paris over death of two teens (2:10)
PARIS, France (AP) -- Unrest spread across troubled suburbs around Paris in a sixth night of violence as police clashed with angry youths and scores of vehicles were torched in at least nine towns, local officials said.
Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets late Tuesday at advancing gangs of youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois -- one of the worst-hit suburbs -- where 15 cars were burned, according to officials in the Seine-Saint-Denis region.
Youths lobbed Molotov cocktails at an annex to the town hall and threw stones at the firehouse. It was not immediately clear whether there were injuries from the clashes.
Four people were arrested for throwing stones at police in nearby Bondy where 14 cars were burned, the prefecture said. A fire engulfed a carpet store, but it was not immediately clear whether the blaze was linked to the suburban unrest.
Officials gave an initial count of 69 vehicles torched in nine suburbs across the Seine-Saint-Denis region that arcs Paris on the north and northeast.
The area, home mainly to families of immigrant origin, often from Muslim North Africa, is marked by soaring unemployment and delinquency. Anger and despair thrive in the tall cinder-block towers and long "bars" that typically make up housing projects in France.
No trouble was immediately reported in Clichy-sous-Bois, where rioting began Thursday following the accidental deaths of two teenagers hiding to escape police in a power substation.
They were electrocuted while trying to hide from the police. A third was injured. Officials have said police were not pursuing the boys, aged 15 and 17.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met Tuesday with the parents of the three families, promising a full investigation of the deaths and insisting on "the need to restore calm," the prime minister's office said.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- blamed by many for fanning the violence with tough talk and harsh tactics -- met Tuesday night in Paris with youths and officials from Clichy-sous-Bois in a bid to cap days of rioting. But the unrest spread even as they met. Sarkozy recently referred to the troublemakers as "scum" and "riffraff."
An Associated Press Television news team witnessed confrontations between about 20 police and 40 youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
Officials said that "small, very mobile gangs" were harassing police and setting fires to garbage cans and vehicles throughout the region.
France-Info radio said some 150 blazes were reported in garbage bins, cars and buildings across Seine-Saint-Denis. The unrest highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor satellites.
Tension had mounted throughout Tuesday after young men torched cars, garbage bins and even a primary school 24 hours earlier. Scores of cars were reported burned Monday night in Clichy-sous-Bois and 13 people were jailed.
Youths set two rooms of a primary school in Sevran on fire Monday along with several cars, Mayor Stephane Gatignon said in a statement.
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