Posted on 11/03/2005 1:22:00 PM PST by Eurotwit
PARIS (AFP) - French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin vowed his government "will not give in" to rioters, even as police braced for an eighth night of violence on the outskirts of Paris.
"I will not allow organised gangs to make the law in the suburbs," he declared in parliament.
More than 1,300 police were deployed to again do battle with groups of stone- and bottle-throwing youths that have torched hundreds of vehicles and vandalised buildings in rampages in low-income, high-immigrant districts since last week.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose hardline law-and-order policies have been blamed for fanning the acts of defiance, said 143 people have so far been arrested in the clashes. More than two dozen police have been hurt.
In a serious sign of an escalation, four shots were fired at officers overnight Wednesday, though none struck their targets. A total of 315 vehicles were set fire to during the night, and a police station was ransacked.
The riots were sparked a week ago by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who had hidden in an electrical sub-station to escape a police identity check in the suburb at the epicentre of the troubles, Clichy-sous-Bois.
Since then, they have spread, first to neighbouring suburbs and finally to every compass point around the French capital.
In many cases, the gangs of youths avoided direct confrontation with police, preferring to run away after setting cars or property on fire.
Often, though, police and firemen were targeted by thrown objects, ranging from stones to bottles filled with petrol. One fireman suffered second-degree burns to his face from a Molotov cocktail.
Sarkozy said the street violence that occurred in the most restive area, the northeastern region of Seine-Saint-Denis, overnight Wednesday "was not spontaneous, it was perfectly organized -- we are looking into by whom and how."
The interior minister, who harbours presidential ambitions, last month promised to wage a "war without mercy" on youth crime.
Some of the youths taking part in the troubles have responded by pledging to continue the "war" against the police "until Sarkozy resigns."
Villepin -- who cancelled a trip to Canada to tackle the crisis -- called the violence "unacceptable" and said restoring order was the government's "absolute top priority."
President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for calm, warning that an escalation would be "dangerous".
For sociologists and many commentators in France, the riots have laid bare the failure of successive government's policies in addressing the grim existence of those living in run-down public housing estates, some of them little more than ghettos where crime and gangs run rampant.
The country has 751 neighbourhoods officially classed as severely disadvantaged, housing a total of five million people, around eight percent of the population.
Conditions are often dire with high-rise housing, unemployment at twice the national rate of 10 percent and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.
Many of France's estimated five million Muslims live in those suburbs, and authorities were left wondering whether the end overnight Thursday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan would bring more or less violence.
"It’s all about the government cheese to them."
Dead, I do believe you have coined the next great addition to the FR lexicon.
That's just classic.
It's fascinating to read the same information as they do, see the same TV images, and STILL the du'ers are so wildly wrong, entirely clueless, and smug about it! They sure don't let fact get in the way of preconceptions!
"Okay, we give." -- Marshal Philippe Pétain, Head of State of Vichy France, June 22, 1940
Or something like that . . . Hey, it's correct in the essentials!
Shots fired at the French is code for the French are turning Paris over to the Muslims.
The French police aren't going to give in to violence? That would be a first.
Things are not going well when you have to reaffirm that you are not going to give into rioters.
Not your typical insider.
Looks just like the Gaza Strip.
It is just this liberal social welfare system that is the perfect situation for terrorists. A terrorist can live off the welfare system. When does not have to work for a living, they can spend full time being a terrorist.
Much as I love to pick on france (see? I just did), when we have riots in the U.S. we are the first to coddle the rioters with "root cause" talk, plus, of course, we have professional coddlemongers like the Rev. Je$$e to deal with. I tend to think we should start shooting, as I went through one of the Miami riots, and it ain't fun or pretty.
The french, on the other hand, could start shooting. Peaceful, beloved people can always get away with bloodshed because they're such fine humanitarians. Not like us. (that's sarcasm)
They are waiting for someone to come and rescue them.
IMHO, I believe that Al Qaeda is already there and with a definite plan. Surround Paris then take it by storm. Those guys are looking at the high ticket items on the Champs Elysee. Al Qaeda needs the publicity right now for an upstroke on recruitment and show of force in Europe. I'd look for the boarding up of business in Paris soon if this rioting isn't handled, and I don't think it's going to be pretty.
I believe that number! The French intensely dislike the Muslims. They can't keep under wraps much longer. You are going to see the French Countryside men taking up arms and heading to Paris.
This anarchy is one of the side effects of appeasement.
Quoi que sera sera!
They are fighting for control of their neighborhoods. They want the police to get out and stay out. That's what it's really all about
The Muslims want Muslim-ruled enclaves within France. The enclaves will serve as secure bases for criminals and drug dealers, and will gradually expand. The Muslims figure they finally have the numbers to start making their push
This explains why there is apparently a very clear line between immigrants from the last generation who have been gainfully employed for most of their lives, and their children in the current generation who have nothing to do but hang around all day and collect their government checks.
The French government mandates ridiculous work rules and labor laws to keep the unions happy, and French employers (including the government) can only stay in business by hiring as few people as possible. The "welfare state" benefits are the price those people of France who are currently employed (and generously compensated) pay to keep the permanent underclass content.
Looks like the system just broke down this week.
More like the plan is to provoke a response that they can whine over as a justification for their bomb/whatever attacks in France.
Friday is the end of Ramadan. THIS IS THE TIME to expect attacks:
Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush...
Surah IX:5And slay them wherever ye find them ... Such is the reward of disbelievers.
Surah II:191
LOL.
Great photo!
I suggest that we come to their aid. We can load one of
NASA's external tanks with pig fat and air burst it over
Paris. That should bring them to their knees.
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