Barbarians at the Gates of Paris

City Journal ^ | Autumn 2002 | Theodore Dalrymple

[Lorianne]

The average visitor gives not a moment’s thought to these Cités of Darkness as he speeds from the airport to the City of Light. But they are huge and important—and what the visitor would find there, if he bothered to go, would terrify him.

A kind of anti-society has grown up in them—a population that derives the meaning of its life from the hatred it bears for the other, “official,” society in France. This alienation, this gulf of mistrust—greater than any I have encountered anywhere else in the world, including in the black townships of South Africa during the apartheid years—is written on the faces of the young men, most of them permanently unemployed, who hang out in the pocked and potholed open spaces between their logements. When you approach to speak to them, their immobile faces betray not a flicker of recognition of your shared humanity; they make no gesture to smooth social intercourse. If you are not one of them, you are against them.

Antagonism toward the police might appear understandable, but the conduct of the young inhabitants of the cités toward the firemen who come to rescue them from the fires that they have themselves started gives a dismaying glimpse into the depth of their hatred for mainstream society. They greet the admirable firemen (whose motto is Sauver ou périr, save or perish) with Molotov cocktails and hails of stones when they arrive on their mission of mercy, so that armored vehicles frequently have to protect the fire engines.

Benevolence inflames the anger of the young men of the cités as much as repression, because their rage is inseparable from their being. Ambulance men who take away a young man injured in an incident routinely find themselves surrounded by the man’s “friends,” and jostled, jeered at, and threatened: behavior that, according to one doctor I met, continues right into the hospital, even as the friends demand that their associate should be treated at once, before others.

[Lorianne]

Lengthy but enlightening article about some of the internal social and criminal problems France is [not] facing. The article perhaps gives some insight into France's reluctance to confront criminal forces in the world at large ... it seems they don't do it at home either. Anyway, intersting reading.

[AppyPappy]

Anarchy fits Paris perfectly.

[Bahbah]

The further out toward the banlieus you travel in Paris, the less you feel you are in Europe at all. The feeling is quite sinister.

[texasbluebell]

bookmark

[MoralSense]

bttt

[7 x 77]

What happens when surrender-monkeys are faced with hoodlums?

Maybe the jokes about the Texas death penalty will soon stop?

[RKM]

Thanks for posting. This article is from Autumn 2002.

[Moose4]

Wow. Just...wow. Frightening article.

So how do you say "Clockwork Orange" in French, anyhow?

}:-)4

[Fraulein]

All that crime and no guns!

[BfloGuy]

All the more frightening for its impossible-to-miss similarities to our own inner-city culture.

"Relieving" people of the possibility and/or the necessity to provide for themselves is not charitable.

[dighton]

First-rate post, Lorianne.

Keyword: Dalrymple

[Petronski]

The French knew of this possibility well before September 11: in 1994, their special forces boarded a hijacked aircraft that landed in Marseilles and killed the hijackers—an unusual step for the French, who have traditionally preferred to negotiate with, or give in to, terrorists. But they had intelligence suggesting that, after refueling, the hijackers planned to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower. In this case, no negotiation was possible.

Too bad Jack Straw didn't read this story to Dominique in the Security Council last Friday: Their goals irrationally homicidal, there was no room to negotiate with them. They had to be killed.

Excellent find.

[Malesherbes]

Excellent article, but these problems are not confined to France but are found throughout western Europe. Britain has long ceased to be "Upstairs/Downstairs" and is now indeed "A Clockwork Orange."

[What Is Ain't]

It couldn't happen to a more worthless country.

[45Auto]

Four comments:

1. Socialism is a disease.

2.Liberalism is a mental disorder.

3.I guess the use of the guillotine is no longer condoned.

4.No citizen is allowed the possession of firearms, so criminals operate with impunity.

[aculeus]

Barbarians also in New York City.

[battlegearboat]

Sans culottes!