Posted on 11/30/2007 8:06:10 PM PST by Dan Evans
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France (AP) - French officials point to a host of causes—poverty, unemployment, the influence of criminal gangs—for riots that erupted this week. But there's one taboo issue that officially colorblind France has been unable to confront: race.
The violence, like riots that spread nationwide for three weeks in exposed how parts of France have divided along color lines, with blacks and Arabs trapped in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods—like Villiers-le-Bel, in the northern suburbs of Paris, where gangs attacked police and burned cars and buildings this week.
"Among the rioters, the very large majority come from immigrant backgrounds," said Douhane Mohamed, a police commander. "Why? We mustn't kid ourselves: there is a direct link between urban violence and ghettos, and the majority of people with immigrant roots live in ghettos."
France does not like to see its recurrent, and some say worsening, bouts of urban violence through the prism of race or color. Rioters are often described simply as "youths," while poor projects with large concentrations of immigrants are "sensitive urban zones."
In the name of equality, France has so idealized the melting pot that it has made its minorities invisible—on paper at least. The country does not compile statistics on the foreign-born or their French-born children. France, a nation of 60 million people, has the largest Muslim community in western Europe but does not know how many Muslims live here. The number is estimated at about 5 million—though some experts disagree.
Critics argue that being officially colorblind has limited France's ability to recognize and treat the difficulties its minorities face—sometimes because of their color. Immigrants and their French-born children often complain that it is harder for them than whites to get work, job interviews, housing, even entrance to nightclubs.
President Nicolas Sarkozy once toyed with the idea of affirmative action but then dropped it before he won the presidency in May. He won praise for appointing three women to his Cabinet who have roots in north and sub-Saharan Africa. But his toughness on immigration and crime has angered many minority youths.
Sarkozy took a hard line against this week's rioters, dismissing the notion that they were symptomatic of a wider social crisis and instead labeling them a "thugocracy."
The rioters are a tiny minority but sullen anger is palpable in Villiers-le-Bel. Black youths complain that police stop and search them because of their color. They speak of exclusion, of not getting a fair shake, of being treated like foreigners in their own country.
Few residents condone the violence and many condemn it—but no one seems surprised that it broke out.
"Everyone is equal. That is what is written. But behind that is something else," said Hassan Ben M'Barek, spokesman for Suburbs Respect, a group that lobbies for those who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
In some such areas of the Paris region, "there are no white French people left in the streets. You can drive around for two or three hours and all you will see are North Africans and blacks. And these are neighborhoods with enormous problems," he added. "Those who have the means to leave the projects are white, and they leave. There's no more ethnic diversity."
It was impossible not to see the violence in Villiers-le-Bel in black and white terms.
The hundreds of beefy riot police officers drafted in, some from as far away as France's eastern border with Germany, were almost exclusively white. The neighborhoods they patrolled were largely black and Arab.
The trigger for the rioting was the deaths last Sunday of two teens whose motorcycle crashed with a police car. Lakamy Samoura, 15 and Mohsin Sehhouli, 16, weren't wearing helmets and their bike was not authorized for public roads.
Police insisted the crash was accidental, but kids in the neighborhood didn't believe it. The deaths became an excuse for two nights of rioting in which more than 100 police officers were injured, some by shotgun rounds.
Tellingly, neither of the teens will be buried in France, although both were French. Mohsin's parents are taking his body to Morocco; Lakamy will be buried in Senegal, from where his parents emigrated in 1966.
Having a foot in France and another in Africa is something that Maka Sali, a black 17-year-old in Villiers, identifies with. She said she doesn't like taking trips into Paris—about 20 minutes away on the train—because she doesn't like the way some whites there look at her.
"I feel like a foreigner," she said. She also said it was "just terrible" that it took the deaths of two teens to thrust the issue of France's poor neighborhoods back to the forefront of the national agenda.
The riots of 2005 also started when two teens were killed—electrocuted while hiding in a power substation from police.
Some argue that the recurring violence must make France rethink its taboos.
Mohamed, the police officer born in France of Algerian parents, said France should carefully allow research into the proportion of crimes and urban violence carried out by minorities, so solutions can be found.
M'Barek said France needs more minorities in visible positions of responsibility and that affirmative action may be a way to get them there.
Since the violence of 2005, France has earmarked billions of dollars for programs to improve housing and create jobs in tough neighborhoods. The government says that its newest "equal opportunities" program will be unveiled Jan. 22.
But it was hard to see among the burned out cars and blackened moods in Villiers that much has changed.
"The only thing they (the government) have done is build that police station," said Frank Dosso, a black 16-year-old, referring to a $7 million police station under construction in Villiers. "But that's not going to last long.
The non-muslim French need only cut off their own heads and offer it to come to a peace with Islam.
It points more to idiotic immigration policies.
Or, even if they don't say that, they think that ~ which is why France thought they could quickly assimilate African tribalists and Middle-Eastern Arabic speaking madmen.
This is what you will have with a Marxist president and a socialist congress — rampant socialism, major class division, them and us, the breeding ground of hate and discontent, no matter where you find it.
Yes, by all means, vote Hillary, 2008. And we can redo the Crusades right here in our streets too.
For the Ping List
Let’s see . . .according to this “journalist” they are “trapped in disadvantaged neighborhoods”
Yet they still want to immigrate to France? Interesting isn’t it?
This begs the question . . . are they really “trapped” or have they made life decisions that result in said “entrapment”?
Didn’t most of the residents of France used to be Frenchies ? They were when my uncle walked through in WW II...
The French can look to America’s War On Poverty on how not to do it.
But it looks like they intend to follow in our footsteps:
"France has earmarked billions of dollars for programs to improve housing and create jobs in tough neighborhoods. The government says that its newest "equal opportunities" program will be unveiled Jan. 22."
They've got a great military...move the military in...they'll stop it.
why is it the writer bends over backwards not to bring their religion into it?
Maybe they are afraid they will get their heads cut off.
“..France thought they could quickly assimilate African tribalists and Middle-Eastern Arabic speaking madmen.”
France should look at the US where tribalists and madmen immediately integrate and accept American culture as its own. Remember, all cultures are equal. NOT.
If this is not good enough for them, then let them go back to the $h-hole country they came from.
I like to think the political correctness of the misguided leadership ties the hands of the French police officers and soldiers. I’m sure if liberated to do so, they could kick tail.
100 French police officers have been injured, one has lost an eye, and they’re still doing their duty ... right?
Oh yeah...affirmative action has worked so well in the US.
The idiots in the media are still painting this as a class issue as if money is the only thing that matters.
You can’t ignore the race/ethnicity/(and oh yes)RELIGION of the people involved.
The first step in solving a problem is RECOGNIZING YOU HAVE ONE. France still isn’t willing to acknowledge that they have a problem.
“Among the rioters, the very large majority come from immigrant backgrounds,”
Unless things have changed in the last few days you would not know this from reading/watching most of the MSM.
I consider it one of the biggest tragedies in Western history, that the original Crusaders couldn't stay focused and finish the job!
If they had, none of these discussions would be necessary.
C'mon, stop beating around the bush. The majority of immigrants to France are Muslims from North Africa.
Thanks to FReeper Army Air Corps for posting this article on the French riots.
The French equivalent of the our Supreme Court which rules on constitutionality of legislation has recently struck down proposed legislation that would allow Census and other data gathering government agencies from asking questions about race or national origin, or language spoken in the home.
FWIW Arab is not a race, and is not the problem. This is in part an Islam, non-assimilation problem, but also a drugs, gangs, rampant unemployment and discrimination problem.
Sarko is trying to set things right by beginning to end the 40 year ghetto-ization programs of previous governments, offering help to those who wish to get an education and job training, and punishing anyone who breaks the law, regardless of race or national origin.
Those poor disadvantaged Moslems from Africa, they have a *right* to shoot cops and burn cars. Thanks Cincinna.
U.S.A has a de-ghetto-ization program also. It destroyed the New Orleans tenements and moved the folks to subsidized single family detached housing out in the drained swamps of the 6th ward.
And along came Katrina.
Any neighborhood 50 years old is eligible for Section 8 federal subsidies.
yitbos
Yea, noticed that too.
Yup. That is LBJ's programs to pay the Blacks not to burn down our cities.
During the 20th century, however, but especially after WWII, this surplus rural population disappeared. As a result, France started bringing in workers from other European countries (Italy, Portugal, Poland, and Spain), as early as the 1910s-1920s. When my grandfather was in Marseilles during the 1940s, he was amazed at the amount of Italian being spoken in said city (and not just its Corsican dialect either).
The current population of rioters is effectively a product not so much of labor shortages but of decolonization. Following the wars in North Africa, the French government let in any Arab/Berber who fought on the French side into the country. Same goes for many Africans as well. This led to the chain migration all too familiar to us Americans, and this is why the old Red suburbs are filled with the "yoots" who you see burning cars.
France and every other European country has always historically accepted Multiculturalism NOT the melting pot. They have never wanted to assimilate minorities. Indeed the elites have always encouraged separate identities. The great multicultural experiment known as Austria-Hungary comes to mind. All minorities were encouraged to keep their own identities, God forbid they should mix with the native population. Yogoslavia was a fitting successor to this missguided mindset. The illusion that one could create a nation made up of separate minorities each keeping it's different customs, languages and habits and expecting a common identity.
This article is moronic.
What actually happens is that illegal aliens flock to France without intent to work or skills to be employed. They are attracted by the suicidally broad social benefits that let illegals live on the dole forever, especially if they have many kids and polygamous families.
As for their neighborhoods, I spent some years as a child in a subsidized rent housing project in France. It was decent, clean and safe. We had a few Arab families in the project, normal folks with funny names. Then the government started buying whole buildings in the projects and rented the bigger apartments to illegal Muslim immigrants with tons of kids (the more kids, the bigger the allocated apartment, yet the higher the rent subsidies). Unemployed guys with twelve kids occupied huge 6-room apsartments that a working family could never afford, at a ridiculously low rent. Crime appeared. The French started to leave.
I saw that project in the news on TV a few years ago. The place had been turned into a dump. The flowers were gone, the swings were broken, the white walls were covered in graffiti and soot. A few "youths" were interviewed, saying what a scandal this place was and how badly France treated them.
THEY turned the place into that mess. And now they complain.
The interviewer concluded that the gummint was going to spend hundreds of millions to renovate the whole project, in off voice, while they were showing the first building of the project being demolished with explosives. I fell sick.
Reading Tolkien, I came across the part where Dwarves mourn their lost kingdom of Moria, overrun by hostile creatures. Boy do I know how that feels.
bttt.
According to an article in Le Monde the Parisian suburbs are being stocked with rifles and other heavy artillery, provenance: the Balkans. My version of the article has been abridged:
http://galliawatch.blogspot.com/2007/12/heavy-artillery-in-banlieue.html
A friend once had a unusual number of mice in his house and couldn't figure out why. He discovered that his animal-loving roommate was setting out food for them under a stairway.
He tossed out the roommate the next day. Too bad we can't do the same with our "compassionate" politicians.
Islam is not a "race"
It works in America. We have had Amish here for 400 years and we seem to get along with them and Jews and dozens of other religious cultures. The trouble with "multiculturalism", leftist style, is that they believe that all cultures are equal. We know otherwise of course. No one co-exists side by side with Muslims peacefully for very long.
Today, Germans persecute Christian home-schoolers who dare to stray from the flock. Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole."
Excellent point.
Much later on the century, the Mitterand government ( Socialist, of course), encouraged people to come in from former French colonies, mostly North African and African Muslims, offering them jobs,even though unemployment was already rising, and a generous dole.
This brought in many Muslim families, many with 3 or 4 wives and 20+ children. The State did not recognize the polygamy, but looked the other way in recognizing all the children. This, one man could collect tens of thousands of dollars a year in family subsidies, prime benefits for having another child, and all sorts of other bonuses.
Mitterand ran a scam...money for votes... and it paid of for him personally, building his Imperial Presidency and legacy. But it nearly impoverished France, and pout a burden on the State, the Education system, housing, and health Care System that it has not yet revoverted from.
Thanks for the heads up. Ghettos getting armed... that is a terrifying thought.
Thanks as well for referencing GalliaWatch, one of my favorite Blogs about France in English .
As for other communities such as Italians or Germans or Irish. The second generations of these groups assimilated and became part of the mainstream culture while partially contributing a smattering of some essence of their cultures into the mainstream. For most of American history we did not encourage separate schools with separate languages, special rights for different ethnic groups etc.. We are moving in the other direction though. Here in Brooklyn the attempt to establish an Arabic speaking high school is merely the first shot across the bow, how long before Hispanics also demand schools with Spanish as the exclusive language? This is the result of policies that began with bi-lingual education and will eventually lesad to the balkanization of the US.
According to an article in Le Monde the Parisian suburbs are being stocked with rifles and other heavy artillery, provenance: the Balkans.Thanks, Fred Nerks! Second ping, all.
Thanks. Thanks Clinton for that gift that keeps on giving.
The only way out is through.
Sarkozy’s Grand Bargain (France looks to rejoin NATO)
The Washington Post | December 2, 2007 | Jim Hoagland
Posted on 12/02/2007 4:40:48 AM EST by Cincinna
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1933499/posts
Impossible! Diversity is a strength.
I don’t like NATO. We are funding European defense and enabling their welfare state. In the process Europe always resents us and they behave as if they were doing us the favor of defending them. It is time to rethink NATO altogather.
I do think France (and Europe) spending more on defense is great. Let’s see how far Sarkozy gets with it.
bump that!
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