Nearly 80 French police officers have been injured, six seriously, during a second night of riots by youths in the suburbs of Paris, police unions say.

The police say some officers suffered bullet wounds, while others were hurt by stones, fireworks and petrol bombs thrown at them in Villiers-le-Bel.

The youths said they were avenging the two teenagers killed when their motorcycle hit a police car on Sunday.

A senior union official said the riots had been more intense than in 2005.

The 2005 unrest, sparked by the accidental deaths of two youths, spread from a nearby suburb of Paris to other cities and continued for three weeks, during which more than 10,000 cars were set ablaze and 300 buildings firebombed.

~~~

More than 70 vehicles and buildings, including the municipal library, two schools and several shops, were set on fire.

Violence was also reported in four other towns across the Val d’Oise department.

The national secretary of the Synergie police union, Patrice Ribeiro, said at least 77 officers had been injured in the violence and that several had been wounded by shotgun pellets fired at them.

The French Interior Minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, said six police officers had been injured seriously and that they included those who had been “struck in the face and close to the eyes”.
   

~~~

Ms Alliot-Marie said she believed the trouble had been organised and correspondents say the scale of the fury involved suggested the riots might have attracted people from outside the area.

The violence happened despite appeals for calm from the families of the two teenagers of Algerian origin whose deaths sparked the violence on Sunday evening.

~~~

President Sarkozy said he wanted “everyone to calm down and let the justice system decide who was responsible.”

Mr Sarkozy was heavily criticised two years ago after he called for crime-ridden neighbourhoods to be “cleaned with a power hose” and described violent elements as “gangrene” and “rabble”.

Video of some of the damage:

Gateway Pundit has lots of photos.

Gabriel Malor asks if maybe, just maybe, the Muslims are better prepared this time and have just been waiting for any opportunity to start tearing apart their neighborhood once again.  Makes sense to me.

My question is when is Sarkozy gonna stop all this crap and send in the calvary?

UPDATE

Couple good comments in the comment section which might be missed by the casual peruser so I’m gonna bring them up here.  First is the comment made by one of the authors to this site, ChrisG about the weapons that are showing up in this riot:

JihadWatch has already noted that the Associated Press is trying to turn this into a gun-control issue by declaring that:

Firearms are widespread in France, and police generally carry guns.

This is of course a lie. In order to have a firearm in France

An Aussie Firearms site
for goes in depth on what firearms are allowed for civilians in France.
Here is a hint: Just like in most countries, LEGAL firearms are are not
the case here. However, ILLEGAL firearms held by these Islamic
“youths” are.

A more consise example is from Gunsworld.com

If you have to go to France and to practice self
defense, you are in a pretty bad situation. Concealed carry is strictly
fobidden, unless you are a policeman ON DUTY, or someone like that.

Nearly all autos calibers like .380 ACP, 9mm Para, .40S&W, and .45 ACP are considered as “war caliber” (1st category).

You can get AT MOST license for “war caliber” firearms (up to seven
central percussion guns), and that’s exclusively for target shooting.

For self defense, you will no more have the choice, if you can get a
license for a such purpose (the frenchies are very restrictive),
between .32 ACP, .38 Spal and .357 Magnum (4th category) those guns can
be bought for Target shooting still with an authorization.

It seems the AP is trying to push another agenda besides reporting
the truth about WHO exactly these “youths” are and WHAT is really
driving them. To the AP’s credit, they at least are stating these
youths are Arabic and North African. It is left to the reader to
actually do the research on the topic though.

And then John Murphy’s take on the underlying reasons for this riot:

Going back to the MSM media coverage at the beginnings of the war
with Iraq one of the most egregious failures, among many, was the
analysis of the lack of support from France. Of course, the
conventional explanation, as it is for almost everything, was that this
was the result of the George Bush go-it-alone style and the arrogance
of the Bush administration. This simplistic view is nonsense. France’s
foreign policy has been strongly influenced by a desire not to offend
French Muslims and thereby avoid domestic unrest among the young French
Muslim population. Not until there were the first riots some years back
did the MSM “thought leaders” discover what is actually going on.

France has a huge domestic problem that has been festering for at
least forty years. There is a sizable minority population made up of
North Africans, often Algerian, and Black Africans from the former
French colonies. The young men of this population are
disproportionately poor, disenfranchised, angry and violent. They are
also, usually Muslim. I have lived in France at various times since the
seventies and have personally seen and been involved in incidents where
this youthful anger turned aggressive.

Who is at fault for this situation is, of course, a complex
question. Undeniably there is racism in France, but it is more than
that. As we know from our experiences here in the U.S. once you have a
poor, segregated, community locked into a cycle of poverty, it is
difficult to turn that around regardless of good intentions or how much
money and how many programs you throw at the problem.

In some ways, and I emphasize “some”, these riots are similar to
riots we have had in the U.S. in the poor African-American communities.
However, there is potentially a BIG difference. Responsible
African-American civil rights leaders have never promoted an allegiance
to authority outside the U.S. as a solution for the problems they see
being caused by a racist system. Responsible Black leaders in the U.S.
argue the opposite. Their position is that African-Americans are first
and foremost American and the problem is that they do not enjoy the
same rights and guarantees as white Americans. In France, things may go
in a different direction.

Because of the existence of radical Islamic thought, and because for
many French Algerians the proximity both geographically and culturally
of Algeria is very close and an alternative to French culture, there is
the danger of a very destructive movement developing. If the aggressive
young men involved in these riots go from being hooligans to seeing
themselves as holy warriors in the Jihad against the West, France’s
social problems and the potential for violence of great destructive
force have increased geometrically. And, of course, I am sure that Al
Qaeda is doing everything it can to exploit the situation. Believe me,
if a young French North African suicide bomber attacks in Paris or any
major French city this situation will go from unpleasant to very, very
ugly in a heartbeat. And, I can guarantee that there are people in
France worried about just such a possibility. The only upside I see to
any of this is that I don’t think it can be blamed on President Bush,
although let’s give the MSM time. They are an inventive lot.

Meanwhile the riots continue for a third night:

Youths rampaged for a third night in the tough suburbs north of
Paris and violence spread to a southern city late Tuesday as police
struggled to contain rioters who have burned cars and buildings and –
in an ominous turn — shot at officers.

A senior police union
official warned that “urban guerrillas” had joined the unrest, saying
the violence was worse than during three weeks of rioting that raged
around French cities in 2005, when firearms were rarely used.

Bands
of young people set more cars on fire in and around Villiers-le-Bel,
the Paris suburb where the latest trouble first erupted, and 22 youths
were taken into custody, the regional government said. In the southern
city of Toulouse, 20 cars were set ablaze, and fires at two libraries
were quickly brought under control, police said.

Despite the
renewed violence, France’s prime minister said the situation was calmer
than the two previous nights. About 1,000 officers patrolled trouble
spots in and around Villiers-le-Bel on Tuesday, he said.

The
government was striving to keep violence from spreading in what was
shaping up as a stern test for new President Nicolas Sarkozy. The
unrest showed anger still smolders in France’s poor neighborhoods,
where many Arabs, blacks and other minorities live largely isolated
from the rest of society.

About the shotguns:

Patrice Ribeiro of the Synergie police union said rioters this time included “genuine urban guerrillas,” saying the use of firearms — hunting shotguns so far — had added a dangerous dimension.

Police said 82 officers were injured Monday night, 10 of them by buckshot and pellets. Four were seriously wounded, the force said. Police unions said 30 officers were struck by buckshot.

One rioter with a shotgun “was firing off two shots, reloading in a stairwell, coming back out — boom, boom — and firing again,” said Gilles Wiart, No. 2 official in the SGP-FO police union.

Youths, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants, again appeared to be lashing out at police and other targets seen to represent a French establishment they feel has left them behind.

“I don’t think it’s an ethnic problem,” Wiart said. “Most of all it is youths who reject all state authority. They attack firefighters, everything that represents the state.”

And finally some talk that this kind of chaos will not be accepted:

The prime minister, François Fillon, who visited the scene yesterday
morning, announced increased security for tonight. “I’d like to pay
tribute to the police, who had an extremely difficult night,” he said.
“Those who shoot at police are criminals and they will be treated as
such.”

He told firefighters in the town: “We will not let go. We will fight with all the force the nation is capable of.”

Now that is the kind of talk I like to hear.

Molotov cocktails were thrown, and cars and plastic bins set on fire following the tragedy in Tolinette, a notoriously crime-ridden district of Villiers-le-Bel, some 20 miles north of the centre of the French capital.

One police station was set alight and another, in a neighbouring suburb, was ransacked after youths threw cocktails, and set bins alight and upturned cars.

Officials said seven police and one firefighter had were injured and there were fears the violence, which spread to the neighbouring town of Arnouville-les-Gonesse, could also take hold in other poor, suburban enclaves.

The boys who died were said by locals to be “aged between 12 and 13″.

Police insisted that their car had not been chasing the boys, and that the officer driving suffered facial injuries in the incident, which happened soon after dusk.

But the violence had grim echoes of the disturbances which followed the electrocution of two youths in a sub-station as they fled police in the nearby suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois in late 2005. It directly led to two months of serious rioting across France, with a state of emergency being declared.

After last night’s deaths, residents in Tolinette said cars were being burnt out, with police fleeing the scene.

One local, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “Around 100 rioters have burn at least two cars, but the forces of law and order are nowhere to be seen.

“There were four police cars here, but they’ve retreated. They were charged by the rioters. Some rioters are climbing up to electric cables to try and break them and put the whole district into darkness.

Police said there were reports of “small groups attacking shops,
passers-by and car drivers” to rob them. One suspect carrying jewelry
from a looted store at Villiers-le-Bel was detained.

I love this sentence:

Relations between youths and police are traditionally tense in some
Paris-area suburbs, some of which are dominated by immigrants.

“Some of which”

Heh…..

The difference here is that Sarkozy is in power.  Will he take the weasel way out, as Chirac did, or will he ensure that law and order is practiced?

Police say 343 vehicles were burnt before 4am, 20 more than the previous year, and more than 260 people were arrested.

Apparently the French government wants the people to know that “hey, it was all just some angry kids, no big deal, lets throw some money at them”

Nidra Poller wrote a article for the TCS Daily a few days ago in which she looks at the riots and the failure of the French to see them for what they really are, :

It is difficult if not impossible to obtain precise information on what really happened during the three-week insurrection, resolutely qualified as ?urban violence.? As usual, reality is twisted, distorted, and diluted by an official version promoted jointly by government and media. For lack of an appropriate heading?guerilla warfare, junior jihad, copycat intifada?the statistics were filed under existing categories, giving a whopping total of 70,000 reported criminal incidents for the month of November. ?Normal? center-city crime was radically reduced. Suggesting that muggers, pickpockets, Jew-bashers, and rapists were busy elsewhere. Busy how? Well, according to the official interpretation, busy trying to explain to fellow citizens their crying need to be accepted.

Once in awhile a bare fact pops up. Two high-level Israeli police officers were invited to advise their French counterparts on efficient methods of riot control. Such unorthodox cooperation is usually kept secret. This time the visit was openly announced. Dire predictions abound for New Year?s Eve. For many years now Molotov cocktails have been competing with champagne for traditional festivities, and this year is expected to be particularly festive. The Socialist opposition, which has more or less cast its lot with the noble rebels, demanded that the state of emergency imposed in the last week of rioting be lifted. Harsh measures, they say, are the cause not the solution to violence. The motion was defeated.

The press reported parsimoniously on a November 21 meeting where police chiefs and domestic intelligence services compared notes and planned security strategy. Judging by two recent mini-riots it would seem that the strategies have yet to be implemented. A gypsy demonstration on December 5 left the boulevard Beaumarchais looking like a war zone. Ravers wreaked havoc last week in the old town of Rennes (Britanny). They burned cars, sacked boutiques, and battled riot police until seven in the morning. The gypsies were protesting imposition of a property tax on caravan sites. The ?ravers? were furious because they had been denied permission to hold a monster techno concert out in the countryside.

Not only do you get your car’s torched by the muslims when they’re angry, but now if the gypsies don’t get there techno concert your car is fair game also.

She then goes on to detail the November riots:

More than 9,000 vehicles were burned, 96 public buildings were destroyed, 126 policemen and policewomen were injured?and it was all done so?spontaneously! Meager excerpts from the domestic intelligence (Renseignements G?n?raux) report have been made public. Supposedly based on intense, high class snooping, the findings just happen to confirm the orthodox interpretation of the ?urban violence?: it was not organized, not coordinated, not religiously inspired. The riots were a spontaneous outburst of frustration from youths burdened with unemployment, discrimination, and ghettoization. They were joined by misguided kids who came along for the fun and got carried away, admiring themselves in the media mirror, competing to burn more cars than the next guys. In short, a mixture of minority protest and boys will be boys rowdiness.

A few days into the rioting the police saw that their conventional standoff techniques were ineffective. Battalion formations were abandoned in favor of small mobile units. Teargas was replaced with new fangled crowd control weapons. Assailants were blumped, blintzed, phlumped, and spray painted. Battles were filmed, DNA data was collected, close to 3,000 people were arrested. The police claim that 80 percent of the young men who were arrested had already been tagged for delinquent behavior. This raises a thorny question that l?Express did not express: if the rebels were thugs, how do they represent the yearnings of earnest immigrants rejected by cruel French society? Left-leaning judges, playing on a technicality–a very small percentage of the rioters actually have records?plucked them out of the criminal category. And the judges will have the last word when the perpetrators come into court.

Quoting a police investigator, L?Express describes the ?bomb factory,? with its stock of two hundred Molotov cocktails, discovered in an abandoned former police station in Evreux outside of Paris. Six minors and a ?big brother? with an impressive police record were arrested. And that?s not all. The hard drive of their computer yielded vivid illustrations of their ?culture?: home movies in which they played at urban warfare, did target practice in garages, and posed, fully armed, next to stolen BMWs. Along with the bb guns, ski masks, and assorted weapons found in Evreux, the police were surprised to discover?sabers! No qur?ans? No orange jump suits? No snuff films? No religious influence, no organized insurrection, no coordination, no planning? Who knows?

Um, sabers? Most of us have said in the beginning that this was not a spontaneous event, rather a mixture of mayhem bloodlust stirred up by criminals in the muslim community. Just as in the Los Angeles Riots, there was no message other then destroying THEIR community, all for fun you see?

Meanwhile images of burning cars, bus depots, and warehouses have been replaced on the TV screen with personalities from the aggrieved communities. Blacks and Muslims are displayed in the kind of rosy light used in markets to make meats and vegetables look luscious and fresh. Some of them are clean cut, well dressed, soft spoken. Others are funky, surly, and barely articulate. Whatever the style, the message is one size fits all: Blacks and Muslims had every reason to revolt. Torching the town was a perfectly understandable reaction to the sufferings they endure. French society has got to change. The legislature should resemble the population in its diversity. And the economy, at every level, all the way up to the top, should reflect this diversity. As for the media, the new look is already in place. Well, not exactly. Most of the journalists are still?uh?well?not diverse. But they agree with their multicultural guests on the diagnosis and treatment of the ills exposed by ?urban violence.?

The message is: we hear you, brother. And of course the Jacques Chirac-Dominique de Villepin government is all benevolence and boost, pulling equal opportunity rabbits out of the hat, waving away the realities of the insurrection with its magic wand.

The soothing message is that nothing really terrible happened, it?s all in the honored tradition of popular revolt and social progress, and French society is all the more prompt to react because it was just on the verge of applying the appropriate measures when the incidents broke out.

Typical leftist mindset. “It’s all our fault because those poor widdle immigrants were being treated badly”, all they can whine about is how they can pull these disenchanted youths out of the gutter. But do you hear them say a word about the true victims in this case?

Today, more than ever, the media are talking to themselves. The determined sociological packaging of the insurrection comes through as a last ditch effort to save appearances. Three weeks of mayhem, with promises of more and worse in the near future, cannot be wished away so easily. The people are fed up, including a good portion of the diverse populations in whose name, supposedly, the cities and banlieues were torched. They want stringent measures. They are disgusted with the normal everyday brutality they?ve been enduring for decades and outraged by the nihilistic mob violence that was allowed to run rampant for three weeks. Nicolas Sarkozy?s popularity is running high despite concerted government and media attempts to make him disappear behind Villepin?s ruffles and oratorical bluster. The far right reportedly saw a sharp rise in registration. Intellectual mob violence against the brilliant philosopher Alain Finkielkraut dared to articulate a different interpretation of the revolt is another sign of frantic denial.

And perhaps the most telling silence that tears through the image-making opinion-making multicultural media circus is the absence of a single word about the two Frenchmen beaten to death during those fateful days. For every ?youth? whose banlieue blues are sung to high praise there is not even a footnote about the grieving families of these men. For all the prime time devoted to memorial marches for Ziad and Bunye, ?dead for nothing,? dead for hiding in an electrical power relay station, there isn?t a word about the 56-year-old Frenchman beaten to death for taking a picture of a streetlight on someone else?s turf, not a word about the Frenchman beaten to death for trying to put out a fire in the housing project where he lived. Sociologists are on call, making agile connections between the torching of day care centers and unemployment, but no one has asked them how young men learn to beat a human being to death in a few short minutes.

Indeed. Not one word is being spoken about those two men who were beaten to death because it was only a spontaneous event, it’s a shame it happened but we have to give those youths some more money to fix it. But….

And the police, whatever they say to the contrary, are tracking down leads to see how the uprising was?spontaneously–planned, coordinated, and related to some sort of religious identity.

Twenty-five terrorists with ties to Zarqawi were arrested this week in different regions of France, and another three were arrested the other day in Seine St-Denis. An arms cache was found in a simple garage in Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots began on October 27th, stocked with explosives, replicas of French commando uniforms, bulletproof vests, and military grade weapons. There was no mention of sabers.

Noooo! No way could this whole event have been planned and instigated by Al-Qaeda. Why would they want to create more violence?

You would have to be blind no to see that groups such as Al-Qaeda have a large presence in the Muslim communities of France and were just waiting for the day, waiting for the excuse, to bring France to it’s knees. When the opportunity arose, they “spontaneously” coordinated the riots. But in typical leftist fashion the French decide that it’s not the Muslim’s fault, it the Governments fault.

Kind of like “If we would have stopped supporting Israel then those planes would have never hit the WTC.”

Amanpour: You know, many people, after hurricane Katrina struck the United States said, that it exposed the poverty and racism that exist in the United States. Many people in France said that ? around the world said it. Many people also said that the riots in the ghettos if you like? in the suburbs ?

De Villepin: I am not sure you can call them riots. It?s very different from the situation you have known in 1992 in L.A. for example. You had at that time 54 people that died, and you had 2,000 people wounded. In France during the 2 weeks period of unrest, nobody died in France. So, I think you can?t compare this social unrest with any kind of riots.

Amanpour: What do you call it then?

De Villepin: Social unrest, you have to understand also, there were no guns in the streets. No adults; mostly young people between 12 and 20 ? so it is very special movement.

Video here.

No one died?

PARIS A man who was beaten by an attacker while trying to extinguish a trash can fire during riots north of Paris has died of his injuries, becoming the first fatality since the urban unrest started 11 days ago, a police official said Monday. Youths overnight injured three dozen officers and burned more than 1,400 vehicles.

Another example would be when those rascally kids participating in the “special movement” doused the crippled lady and set the bus she in was ablaze. Those poor kids, if they had been employed then this would not have happened.

It’s beyond me how this Country even survives for one day. 3 weeks of RIOTING, thousands of cars destroyed, businesses demolished, and people killed but he wants to call it a “special movement”.

Riot = Riot (n.) c.1225, “debauchery, extravagance, wanton living,” from O.Fr. riote (masc. riot) “dispute, quarrel,” perhaps from Prov. riota, of uncertain origin. Meaning “public disturbance” is first recorded 1390.

One other point, the LA Riots were under control in 4 days. Tell me, how long did those French RIOTS last? This tells you volumes about the French ability to control anything in their country. Maybe these RIOTERS were just trying to find out if the French have a backbone. Guess they got their answer quite quickly.

Others Blogging:

BigDumbGuy
Inside Larry’s Head
Atlas Shrugs
California Conservative
Sister Toldjah

Maybe these RIOTERS were just trying to find out if the French have a backbone. Guess they got their answer quite quickly.

PARIS, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Urban violence in France fell to normal levels on Thursday after three weeks of rioting in run-down suburbs, allowing the government to begin mapping out plans to tackle the problems that sparked the unrest.

Ninety-eight vehicles were set ablaze during the night, a sharp drop from the peak of the violence when 1,400 vehicles were torched in one night on Nov. 6 by youths who say they are excluded from mainstream French society.

“The situation has returned to normal because about 100 vehicles are set on fire each night in France,” a police spokesman said.

[...]About 9,000 vehicles have been set on fire and 3,000 people detained during the unrest, which has mainly involved youngsters of Arab and African origin, but also some white youths, torching cars and setting fire to buildings such as schools and churches.

“It was necessary to make a gesture to everyone and show we are committed to restoring order. I think the message has been clearly heard by everyone,” government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope told France’s RMC radio.

President Jacques Chirac has been criticised for saying little during the crisis, which began on Oct. 27 after the accidental deaths of two youths who were electrocuted as they hid in a power substation while apparently fleeing police.

But he raised his profile on Monday by addressing the “poison” of discrimination in a nationwide television address and announcing plans to create a voluntary task force to train youngsters and break down their sense of exclusion.

[...]Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has also announced he will restore 100 million euros ($116.9 million) in axed credits to local associations, outlined new plans to create jobs and said he will lower to 14 the age for apprenticeships.

Many disillusioned youngsters doubt the government will make good on its promises, but ministers say they are determined to deal with long-running problems such as poor housing, crime and unemployment.

Tourism Minister Leon Bertrand, one of only three non-whites in the government, called in Liberation newspaper for a “political response that goes beyond the ordinary rules of governance by opening … a national debate on the changes in our society to rekindle social dialogue.”

First thing that pop’s out at me is the fact that a 100 car’s a night are burned everyday in France, or so the spokesman says.

It seem’s the French work their butts off to get nothing done. Except capitulating to Islamofacists.

What do people think about the rioting and destruction in France? It’s hard to say because beyond some “good pictures” of torched cars and firemen and police trying to deal with an out-of-control situation, we aren’t getting the whole ? much less the real ? story.

For the third continuous week, a good part of France is in flames and wilding mobs in the streets have wreaked havoc on business areas and neighborhoods. The whole country is the victim of wanton violence and destruction.

From a news-coverage point of view, what do we get? Not much ? not much accuracy and no depth. It can be blamed on ill-informed producers, editors and reporters and a politically correct bias in coverage decisions.

When the rioting began, it was barely covered. In some cases, local newspapers, notably the liberal ones, the story was first ignored or buried deep in the papers. Then, it hit the front page and, just as quickly, was buried again. How much coverage has there been of similar arsons and demonstrations in Germany, Belgium and Denmark?

News outlets love easy stories, especially natural disasters. A tsunami headlined for weeks. So does hurricane damage in New Orleans and anywhere else. And of course, earthquakes, volcano and floods are good for miles of newsprint and hours of air-time.

It has it all: good pictures, good sound, injured and dying people, survivor stories and property destruction

[...]What’s happening in France could happen here, given the nature of terrorism. The media are doing a grave disservice by not presenting the story with facts and perspective.

As the French mobs moved through the streets, nothing was safe: Schools, hospitals, gymnasiums, homes, cars, trucks, busses, businesses, warehouses, churches, synagogues ? even people.

A woman in a wheelchair was doused with fluid and set afire. A man trying to protect his car from being destroyed was beaten to death. Firemen and medical personnel were attacked and police were forbidden to fight back.

There may never be a “final” estimate of the damage caused ? because this kind of insurrection may never really end ? but preliminary estimates put it at over $235 million dollars. Reports are that more than 6,500 automobiles have been destroyed. For a country with severe employment and financial troubles, dealing with property damage alone will present enormous troubles for the government of President Jacques Chirac.

It didn’t help that for more than 10 days after the violence erupted ? supposedly a reaction to the accidental electrocution of two, Muslim teenagers who were running from police and hid in an electric transformer shed, not the smartest thing they ever did, but certainly the last ? Chirac was neither seen nor heard.

His country was in flames, mobs in the street, people petrified by the violence, police ordered not to shoot ? and the president was invisible.

When he finally did appear, it was more to lament the events and say that France must do more to solve the problems of these people.

What people?

Apparently, that means everyone in France who’s poor, unemployed, uneducated, illiterate and of foreign extraction, legally or illegally in the country, with language problems.

Unfortunately for France, that’s a lot of people, the result of the policy of encouraging immigration to provide low-paying jobs and assuming that those same people will magically become French and accepting of the culture and customs of the country.

Also, the socialist bent of the country had meant that those same people are unable to work themselves into the middle class. They come to expect the government to provide for them. The other half of the equation is that those same people too often don’t want to assimilate into the culture.

The mother of an arrested 21-year-old rioter is an Algerian immigrant. She and her husband have been in France 25 years, are both illiterate and don’t speak French. Her son failed high school, dropped out and is unemployed after having a job for 8 months. The mother says life there is difficult and “they don’t give work to the young.”

Aside from not assimilating, this woman has learned the socialist mantra: The government must give out jobs.

One aspect about the perpetrators, which the French dare not mention ? they are multicultural and diverse, after all ? is that the bulk, if not all of the rioters and arsonists, are Muslim.

Uh, oh. Can’t say that.

There are an estimated 10 million Muslims in Europe ? some 6 million are in France. These are generally people who maintain their culture, dress, religion, schools and language. Because of their separatism, they live in enclaves, whole sections of cities that are theirs ? in some cases, areas that are so dangerous that police fear to enter. These are people who do not assimilate and do not become French even though they have French citizenship. Their anger has been fanned into flames by preaching of jihad in militant mosques.

[..]It’s perverse to see how traditional media have twisted themselves into pretzels to avoid either reporting the story at all, or reporting it but burying it, or playing down the magnitude of the story, or focusing on the ramifications. They deliberately avoid using the word “Muslim.”

Americans are being deliberately kept in the dark about the import of these riots and what they could mean ? not just for this country, but for the rest of the Western world. If political correctness could kill, this might just be the perfect example

But hey, it seems to be dissipating:

France’s national police chief said Sunday that the country’s worst rioting since the 1960s seemed to be nearing an end, but violence persisted into the night, with at least two schools set on fire and dozens of cars torched.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso proposed that the European Union give $58 million to France for helping riot-hit towns recover. He said the EU could make up to $1.2 billion available in longer-term support.

In scattered attacks overnight into Monday, vandals rammed a car into a primary school in the southern city of Toulouse before setting the building on fire and burned cars in northeastern Strasbourg. In northern France, arsonists set fire to a sports center in the suburb of Faches-Thumesnil and a school in the town of Halluin.

[...]The number of cars burned nightly has steadily decreased ? from 502 overnight into Saturday, to 374 overnight into Saturday, to 208 as Monday began. A week earlier, 1,400 cars were incinerated in a single night.

Well that’s swell….

And what’s this? The people want someone who actually acts when emergencies occur?

A poll in the newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche suggested Sarkozy is the politician that French people trust most to deal with the troubles. Some 53 percent said they supported him, while about 71 percent said they lacked confidence in President Jacques Chirac.

It seem’s that the French have no dignity left, no balls. If I caught a supposed “troubled youth” burning my vehicle he would be lucky to be hooked up to life support the next day.

Uh oh, did I piss you liberals off? Did I just just state my right to defend my personal property? I guess the MSM hasn’t completely PC brainwashed me yet. I mean why would I fight back against scum and thugs? Don’t I understand that it’s the deepseated racism that drove those poor widdle kids to destroy everything in their path?

Sigh.

Poor Chirac

FRANCE yesterday ordered a ban on public meetings likely to provoke disturbances as thousands of police were deployed on the streets of Paris to stop youths turning the tourist centre into a battlefield.

The initiative came as speculation mounted over a severely discredited Jacques Chirac?s ability to endure the last 17 months of his presidential term.

Ringleaders of the riots that have shaken France for the past two weeks were suspected of planning to set ablaze the affluent Champs Elys?es. Through text and internet messages they were encouraging followers armed with Molotov cocktails to converge on the tree-lined tourist haunt just a stone?s throw from Chirac?s palace.

The violence, which started just over two weeks ago in poor suburbs, has fallen in intensity since the government announced emergency measures on Tuesday. Lyons witnessed the first riot in a major city centre yesterday, but police quickly took control by firing tear gas.

Across the country, 130 cars were torched before midnight and police made 41 arrests. Arsonists burnt down an electronics store on the fringes of Toulouse and a school in the southern town of Carpentras. A riot policeman was injured by a metal ball thrown from an apartment block in a Paris suburb.

On Friday night 502 vehicles were set ablaze, the highest total for three days, and 206 people were arrested. In Carpentras, two fire bombs were hurled at a mosque.

Sure sounds like the riots are dissipating huh?

Central Paris has largely escaped the worst civil unrest in France since the student protests of 1968 but Chirac?s response to the mayhem engulfing the country has been widely condemned. He has said virtually nothing about it, heightening perceptions of him as a politically irrelevant figure.

He looked pale and deflated on Thursday in a rare public appearance, prompting rumours that the blood vessel problem for which he was hospitalised for a week in September ? some described it as a mild stroke ? might have inflicted more damage than previously acknowledged.

The 72-year-old head of state has been off balance ever since voters defied him by rejecting the European Union constitution in May. Even his lieutenants in the centre-right governing team seemed to be putting the boot in. ?Chirac looks stunned, almost overtaken by events,? Jean-Louis Debr?, president of the national assembly, was quoted as saying.

Chirac, a veteran of countless political battles, baffled his opponents by leaving it to a spokesman to announce the revival of a state of emergency law to quell the unrest.

His few defenders said Chirac was simply following a tradition among French presidents who like to hover loftily above the political fray. A less charitable interpretation was that he had become hopelessly out of touch.

On Thursday he made a rare admission of failure by accepting that the government had not acted quickly enough in tackling racial discrimination.

I gotta tell ya, Chirac isn’t losing it. He has LOST it already. This article makes it sound like Chirac was a good leader at one point, give me a break. He has been a joke to the world since he came into power and is a joke leaving.

This my friends is the end result of Socialism. They no longer have a national identity or even any pride in their country. They get leaders who are nothing but leftists clowns who bash America to gain popularity in their communities. They let immigrants into their country who refuse to assimilate (sound familiar?) and then give them everything that their heart desires. I mean these people we’re getting up to 75% of their last paycheck in welfare assistence! Why even work?

Isn’t Socialism swell?

Can you imagine what the MSM and the Democrats would have been calling this if we had 17 days of riots and 300 cities burning in our country? A complete Bush failure. But the French are now just getting around to blaming Chirac? Wtf is that?

Through a combination of socialism at home and appeasement abroad, the French believed they had found a viable alternative to, in former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s phrase, “jungle capitalism,” as practiced by you know who. Jacques Chirac was more direct, condemning “ultra liberal Anglo-Saxon” economic policies, while also famously boasting that France would anchor a European pole in a “multipolar” world, with American influence vastly reduced. With 300 French cities in flames, French pretensions lie singed and shriveled.

By “ultra liberal” Chirac of course meant free market, not liberal in the American sense. American liberals are equivalent to European socialists. And French socialists have set the table for the current crisis. Yes, the rioters are all Muslim youths from North Africa and the Middle East. And the racism of French society may fuel the flames to some extent, but the most important factors in this story are economic. The French have accepted wave after wave of immigrants with no prospect of employing them. In the U.S., the unemployment rate among natives and immigrants is the same. Not so in France.

The French have enacted all of the economic policies that liberals would like to see implemented in this country. So, for example, jobs are protected. If a French company employing more than 600 people wants to fire someone, it must endure administrative procedures that last an average of 106 days. Because it is so difficult to fire employees, French companies are less willing to take risks in hiring. This hurts young, inexperienced workers disproportionately. Once unemployed, 40 percent of French workers can expect to remain so for more than a year. Not only are jobs hard to find, but joblessness is softened by generous benefits. Unemployment benefits range from 57 to 75 percent of the worker’s last salary and can last as long as three years (with a cap of 5,126 Euros per month).

The French boast of (and American liberals drool over) France’s 35-hour workweek. But French economic growth slowed to 0.1 percent in the second quarter of 2005 and is unlikely to reach 2 percent for the year. American economic growth, by contrast, was 3.8 percent in the first quarter of 2005. Payroll taxes are higher in France than in any of the other 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Writing in The American Enterprise magazine, Olaf Gersemann estimates that per capita income in the U.S. now exceeds that of France by 40 percent. The French unemployment rate is more than 10 percent — 21.7 percent among 15- to 24-year-olds, and reportedly as much as 40 percent among Muslim youths. Since the 1970s, Europe has created only 4 million new jobs. The U.S. has created 57 million in the same period. Some Europeans may be enjoying their short workweeks and lavish paid vacations, but many others, particularly immigrants, cannot find jobs at all.

[...]But socialism is an insidious poison. The vast majority of French voters seem wedded to their government-supplied goodies — failing to recognize that their economic and therefore social lives are unraveling because of that dependence. When they rejected the proposed EU constitution last summer, most French voters told pollsters they were worried about losing welfare benefits and trade protections.

The cars aflame in French cities now underscore the dangers of economic stagnation. The French have imported a small army of socially, culturally and economically estranged young men. These Muslim men would have been difficult to assimilate under the best of circumstances. But in a sclerotic, socialist state, where the prospect of jobs and economic advancement is so remote, the task becomes titanic.

So, Monsieur Jospin, which economic system deserves the prefix “jungle”?

If the liberals have their way we will be in the same situation as the French someday.

While I agree that the French economic policies are a factor in the Paris riots, how do you explain the rioting in Germany and Belgium? You let Muslims take over neighborhoods in your country, almost giving them autonomy, then as soon as they get strong enough they will let you know that Islam has no borders and they will take the land by force. Radical Islam has no other goal then the destruction of the west, get it through your thick skulls liberals.

Radical Islam has no other goal then the destruction of the west, get it through your thick skulls liberals.

I was sitting at my desk about 5:00 pm the 8th, wondering whether to start work on a new project or to pack up a few books and go home for a Martini. The telephone rang. It was a friend who lives in Metz, a long train ride away from Paris, a quiet town without a great deal of either night life or ethnic strife. ?I?m looking out my window,? he said, ?watching an apartment building going up in flames. A police helicopter is going back overhead but nothing is being done to stop the rioters.?

I asked him how long the rioting had been going on in Metz. ?It?s night after night. Not so bad as in Toulouse or in the Paris suburbs but bad enough.?

I had been watching the news since the disturbances broke out, and on All Saints I noted that of nearly 300 stories on Google mentioning France and Interior Minister Sarkozy, only one was an American reference to the violence?a few seconds on FOX news. When the Washington Post and the New York Times finally made up their minds that the news could not be suppressed?always a painful decision for them to have to make?we quickly learned about French racism and the plight of the poor Arabs and Africans. Time after time on NPR I heard a comparison with America?s own civil rights struggle in the 1960?s. Apparently, people who work for NPR or the Post are under the impression that the Watts riots had something to do with civil rights. Some day they should read Edward Banfield?s The Unheavenly City, particularly the chapter on ?Rioting for Fun and Profit.?

If Muslim young men in Paris are rioting, raping, setting buildings and women on for, all for better jobs, what explains their behavior everywhere else in the world? In Egypt, where they riot to protest a secular government. In Pakistan, where they stage cross-border raids into India for the sole purpose of killing non-Muslims. In New Jersey, where they slaughtered an Egyptian Christian family because the father was too critical of Islam and where they went out into the streets to celebrate their victory on September 11.

[...]In fact, the non-Muslims of France are now experiencing what some of their ancestors endured in the days before Charles Martel beat the Muslims back into Spain. Do not expect French politicians (apart from the ?extreme right?) to use such language. PM Sarkazoy, after describing the rioters as scum, now declares his government?s eagerness to promote civil rights. France, like the countries of North America and Western Europe, is a leftist country, where so-called conservatives talk only of free markets, equality, and economic growth. Only a fascist beast like Jean-Marie Le Pen or Charles de Gaulle would waste time talking about the French nation. Nations, in the eyes of liberals?whether of the Marxist or libertarian stripe (not much difference, actually), are an optical illusion. There is no forest, only trees, and if an entire forest of trees were to disappear while they were not looking, then nothing would happen unless they happened to have an investment?political in the case of Marxists, financial in the case of libertarians?in the place.

To make things worse, the Arab youths, as victims of discrimination, are behaving exactly as leftists think they ought to behave. Imagine you are a French intellectual approaching 60, forever dwelling on the glory days of the student riots in which you and your pals burned cars in 1968. Isn?t this the same scenario? Dispossessed people struggling for freedom and dignity?

In a sense, yes. The riots of ?68 and ?05 are both outbursts of hooliganism that need to be repressed by the most violent means at the French government?s disposal, but there is a difference. The Marxist students believed in the political violence for the sake of revolution; the Islamic youths believe in violence against infidels for its own sake, as a divinely sanctioned method of dealing with pigs and cattle. I have not talked to Jean Raspail in years, but these riots are, in miniature, the unfolding of his scenario in Camp of the Saints: violent and licentious Third-Worlders whose attacks meet with no resistance from the demoralized self-hating West.

At the heart of the problem is not the teachings of a wicked and stupid religion but the stupid leftism[...]

This article hits the nail on the head so hard it shattered the hammer. Unless this Country figures out the futility and stupidity of the leftist mode of thinking we may be in for the same ride as France is on. Of course, like I stated before in a prior post, we will shoot back.

On another note, The French Minister of Interior Department Nicolas Sarkozy has asked that those foreigners arrested for rioting to be kicked out of France: (translated via Babelfish)

The Minister of Interior Department Nicolas Sarkozy asked the prefects to expel all the foreigners condemned within the framework of thirteen last nights urban violences. It is what it announced Wednesday with the French National Assembly.

“120 foreigners all, not in irregular situation, were condemned” to have taken part in the last nights of urban riots, indicated the Minister of Interior Department at the time of the meeting of the topical questions. “I asked to the prefects that they be expelled without delay of our own territory, including those which have a residence permit”, Nicolas Sarkozy specified.

So it appears France has at least one person who doesn’t carry a white flag in his back pocket.

Unless this Country figures out the futility and stupidity of the leftist mode of thinking we may be in for the same ride as France is on.

MOSCOW. Nov 7 (Interfax) – The current developments in France result from new political methods and the actions of the secret services, State Duma Vice-Speaker and leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky told Interfax on Monday.

“These are new political methods. The current situation in France was planned in advance – secret services are behind the riots, their goal is to bring a pro-American leader to power in 2007,” he said.

Zhirinovsky does not think similar riots possible in Russia.

People from former French colonies are taking part in the French unrest, he said. In fact, this is their revenge on Frenchmen for living a poorer life. “In this country the situation is different: former citizens of the Soviet Union come to Russia, we give them jobs and they live better than Muscovites,” he said.

Xenophobia and ethnic tensions in Russia are incited on purpose “to intimidate people and make them vote for the ruling party,” he said. “People are being scared with red and brown threats,” Zhirinovsky said. Muscovites were shown the brown threat when right-wing forces held a march in Moscow on November 4, and they will be shown the red threat when left-wing forces celebrate the November 7 holiday, he added.

This is being done to make Muscovites vote for United Russia on December 4, Zhirinovsky said.

I think we need to get Joe Wilson over there pronto! There’s some investigating to be done.

Ok, to be fair, Zhirinovsky is akin to Howard Dean over here, but still….good stuff. Maybe the Hillary can put him on the ticket?

I think we need to get Joe Wilson over there pronto! There’s some investigating to be done.

While Many Americans are watching the chaos unfold following 12 nights of mayhem by largely Muslim immigrants in the streets of France, a leader of the separatist Aztlan movement in the U.S. says it’s only a matter of time before worse unrest hits the streets of America.

“Can a similar insurrection occur in the USA?” asks Ernesto Cienfuegos of La Voz de Aztlan.

Yes, he concludes.

“Today, here in Los Angeles, we are already seeing ominous signs of an impending social explosion that will make the French rebellion by Muslim and immigrant youths seem ‘tame’ by comparison,” he writes. “All the ingredients are present including a hostile and racist police as in France. In fact, we came close to having major riots on three separate occasions just this year alone.”

Aztlan activists, who see themselves as “America’s Palestinians,” want to carve out of most of the southwestern United States an independent, Spanish-speaking nation known as the Republica del Norte.

According to earlier reports in La Voz de Aztlan, the leaders of this movement are meeting continuously with extremists from the Islamic world.

“There are great similarities between the political and economic condition of the Palestinians in occupied Palestine and that of La Raza in the southwest United States,” explained one 2001 editorial in La Voz de Aztlan.

Los Angeles is perceived as the future capital of Aztlan or Republica de Norte.

Cienfuegos continued in today’s dispatch: “On top of all this, there are major rumblings in the high schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the USA. A few days ago, thousands of students, predominantly of Mexican descent, simply walked out of their schools to protest overcrowding, lack of texts, lack of desks and unqualified teachers. There is a strange feeling here in Los Angeles that something sinister is about to happen, but no one knows when. All it will take is for a ‘bird-brain cop’ to do something stupid and all hell will break loose. If another major rebellion breaks out here in L.A. it could rapidly spread throughout the USA as it has spread in France.”

“The social and economic conditions that exist in France that adversely affect its immigrant and Muslim populations also exist here in the USA,” Cienfuegos writes. “These conditions negatively affect our black, Latino and immigrant populations in the same way. The rebellion that is occurring in France can and will most probably happen here. If it does, it will have grave consequences on the social, political and economic structures of the country and it could possibly topple a government already weakened by the Iraq War and corruption within its ranks.”

Big difference between France and America jackass. Unlike in France, we will shoot back.

Recall our most recent significant riots, the King riots and the Watts riots. They burned their own neighborhoods but when they turned towards those Korean business’s they quickly made a u-turn. Seeing those Koreans on top of their business’s with assault rifles changed their minds.

I have worked in a low-income area of South-Central Los Angeles for eight years and have come in contact with thousands of legal and illegal immigrants. I have learned that Aztlan and the other communist organization La Raza don’t have a huge following in the Hispanic community. Most Hispanics are fairly religious and conservative and appreciate living in a country where they can earn a living.

“Ernesto Cienfuegos”

A terrorist-loving anti-semite.

Other’s blogging:

Gonzo’s Bar & Grill

Big difference between France and America jackass. Unlike in France, we will shoot back.

Iran?s Association of Muslim Journalists (AMJ) issued a statement on Sunday condemning the violation of Muslims? civil rights in France and calling on the French government to cooperate with them in establishing a fact-finding commission in order to investigate the conditions of French Muslims.

The AMJ said that the mistreatment of Black French Muslims over the past two weeks has deeply influenced Iranian public opinion.

?We suppose that the French government has carried out the recent discriminatory and anti-human rights acts under the influence of the Zionist lobby in France to limit the social and personal freedoms of the Muslims residing in the country, which is quite unacceptable on the part of a country that claims to be democratic,? part of the statement read.

Quite rich, maybe they should investigate how the Muslims residing in Iran are faring?

I almost thought I was reading a post at Scrappleface, but nope….it’s real.

Although the destruction of property and the injuries sustained to innocent people are regrettable it appears the French have backed the wrong horse when they sided with the Muslims instead of the Americans. I guess kissing the asses of Iran and Iraq didn’t work out to well huh?

PARIS (AP) — France will impose curfews under a state-of-emergency law and call up police reservists to stop rioting that has spread out of Paris’ suburbs and into nearly 300 cities and towns across the country, the prime minister said Monday, calling a return to order “our No. 1 responsibility.”

The tough new measures came as France’s worst civil unrest in decades entered a 12th night, with rioters in the southern city of Toulouse setting fire to a bus after sundown and pelting police with gasoline bombs and rocks. Earlier, a 61-year-old retired auto worker died of wounds from an attack last week, the first death in the violence.

Asked on TF1 television whether the army should be brought in, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said, “we are not at that point.”

But “at each step, we will take the necessary measures to re-establish order very quickly throughout France,” he said. “That is our prime duty: ensuring everyone’s protection.”

The new measures followed the worst overnight violence so far, and foreign governments warned their citizens to be careful in France. Apparent copycat attacks took place outside France, with five cars torched outside the main train station in Brussels, Belgium. German police were investigating the burning of five cars in Berlin.

So instead of calling out the troops they send 1500 reserve cops….yeah, that will do it.

President Jacques Chirac, in private comments more conciliatory than his warnings Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, acknowledged in a meeting Monday with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga that France has not integrated immigrant youths, she said.

Chirac deplored the “ghettoization of youths of African or North African origin” and recognized “the incapacity of French society to fully accept them,” said Vike-Freiberga.

France “has not done everything possible for these youths, supported them so they feel understood, heard and respected,” Chirac added, noting that unemployment runs as high as 40 percent in some suburbs, four times the national rate, according to Vike-Freiberga.

And here we go, the lefts typical response to these issues. Don’t point the finger at those committing crime, those beating people, those burning peoples business’s, no…..explain it away, it’s the fault of the government, those poor rioting Muslims.

Vandals burned more than 1,400 vehicles overnight into Monday, as well as churches, schools and businesses, and injured 36 police officers in clashes around the country, setting a new high for arson and violence, said France’s national police chief, Michel Gaudin. Attacks were reported in 274 towns, and police made 395 arrests.

“This spread, with a sort of shock wave spreading across the country, shows up in the number of towns affected,” Gaudin said.

In terms of material destruction, the unrest is France’s worst since World War II – and never has rioting struck so many different French cities simultaneously, said security expert Sebastian Roche, a director of research at the state-funded National Center for Scientific Research.

The curfews being imposed to quell the rioting fall under a 1955 law that allows the declaring of a state of emergency. The law was passed to curb unrest in Algeria during the war that led to its independence from France.

Villepin said 1,500 reservists were being called up to reinforce the 8,000 police and gendarmes already deployed. The Cabinet will meet Tuesday to authorize curfews “wherever it is necessary,” he said.

Ok, lets do some math here. 9,500 police divided by 274 towns equals 35 cops per town.

I’m sure the rioting Muslims are quaking in fear, you know how tough those French police can be and you put 35 of em in your town, whoa nelly.

I’m taking bets now on how long it will take the French government to surrender, we all know how good at surrendering they are.

It also appears that they have arrested a few of the instigators who called for riots via blogs: (translated via Babelfish)

PARIS (Reuters) – a minor and two major young people suspected of having launched on Internet of the calls to the riot and the aggression counter police officers were stopped Monday in Aix-en-Provence and in Paris area, one learns from legal source.

The three “blogs” used, of Internet sites personnel, were lodged on the site of radio operator Skyrock, which decontaminated them during the weekend.

“the sites encouraged to take part in the general movements of urban violences and to attack police officers and police stations”, at Reuters a magistrate of the parquet floor of Paris declared.

The parquet floor was to decide in the day of the possible opening of legal information, an investigation being considered it necessary to determine the possible political fasteners of the suspects and to know if their step proceeds or not of an organized company.

The suspects will incur up to five years of prison if the qualification had a presentiment of for the facts, “incentive to make aggressions against people”, is retained.

The Telegraph has a map showing the progression of the riots: (h/t The New Editor)

Other’s blogging:

Logical Thinking
Protein Wisdom
Inside Larry’s Head
Donkey Stump
Stop The ACLU

I?m taking bets now on how long it will take the French government to surrender, we all know how good at surrendering they are.

Paris – Youths armed with shot pistols wounded 29 police officers on Sunday as rioting went into an 11th consecutive day in France, said police in the southern Paris suburb of Grigny.

Two of the officers struck by the pellets were said to be seriously wounded after police came under fire during clashes with groups of rioters in Grigny.

Sunday’s new round of unrest broke out as President Jacques Chirac broke his silence on the crisis, telling journalists in Paris that the government’s “absolute priority is the re-establishment of security and public order”.

“The law should have the final word,” Chirac said after an emergency meeting of the government’s homeland security council.

In what were Chirac’s first comments on the unrest, the French president said that he, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and the seven ministers in the homeland security council had “taken a certain number of decisions to reinforce the actions of the police and courts”.

“The republic is quite determined to be stronger than those who want to spread violence and fear,” Chirac added.

Ok, let me get this straight, 11 days later and the leader of France is just now commenting on the riots? Um, hello? Anyone else see something wrong with this?

On April 5th, 1968, the night after MLK was killed the Mayor of that city, Richard Daley, ordered the Superintendant of Police to “shoot to kill any arsonists, or anyone with a molotov cocktail in their hands, because they’re potential murderers, and to shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting any stores in our city”

Guess things are a bit different in France huh?

But of course the left and the MSM screamed bloody murder. Why would anyone use force to stop those destroying a city?

Chirac is a hero to the American left, mostly because of his position on Iraq (no money involved there huh?), yet instead of taking any kind of decisive action he hides until he realizes this isn’t just going to go away. Then, he talks tough while his police are being used for target practice.

COWARD.