131 Comments

1. syn:

Makes one wonder do the French idolize black artist, like Nina Simon, for their artistry or because black artists make the French feel superior that they have tokens to represent their smug Liberalism?

Or, are the French simply racists towards North Africans?

What does Big Brother Media have to say?

Nov 7, 2005 - 5:43 am 2. markus:

” country itself seems defunct, its economic system a mess, its ability to assimilate immigrants (partly through its own fault and partly through the tribal religious primitivism of the immigrants themselves) practically non-existent. Its politicians seem a collection of pompous aristos and equally pompous leftists.”

Seems, seems, seems…

Assuming you’ve got Chirac down as an “aristo”, I’m not sure who the leftists are in your demonology. Laurent Fabius, who I believe is the leader of the Socialists, sounds typically limpwristed, but not terribly pompous. (He would also be the first Jewish leader of France.) Though now it seems more likely that he and every other Socialist will get his butt kicked even worse by Le Pen in the next election. Perhaps Le Pen is your pompous leftist? (I’m sure many of your readers would put both him and Chirac on the left.)

Anyway, apropos your comments about movies a few days ago, this great film was a hit in France last year: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374583/

Haven’t seen an American film nearly as good in years, even in the what used to be called the arthouses. So, the American highbrow is still the French middlebrow.

Nov 7, 2005 - 5:52 am 3. syn:

Funny, the radical New Left in the 60’s used blacks in the same fashion. All the guys thought it cool to be seen with black females as a means to represent their anti-establishment cause against The Man.

So, did the New Left sincerely believe in respecting black power or did Rubin and the gang simply use blacks as tokens in order to impose their deceptive cause?

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:06 am 4. nittypig:

Leon Blum, just about 70 years ago, was the first Jewish leader of France. Admittedly he was PM and not president, but under the 3rd republic the president was a figurehead – the PM had all the power.

I’m quite concerned that France may into one of it’s phases where it looks for a man on a white horse. Is Le Pen a modern day Boulanger? (I think not) But then who is?

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:06 am 5. mrp:

France has very strict weapons-control regime. After doing a bit of searching, I found a link to the French 2002 Customs Service Report, which summarizes that year’s activities.

One should keep in mind that the numbers reflect: a) intercepted shipments b) Figures released by the French government c) Figures released by the French government in English.

Excerpt:

A man had been arrested as he was carrying in a car around thirty mines, grenades and a great number of igniters. He pretended that he would sell the mines in Belgium. During a home search, investigators discovered a true arsenal. On the whole, 520 items among which 88 mines and grenades and 432 arm devices were seized.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:22 am 6. madawaskan:

Roger-

Agh-I really want to read this post here and sorry to go O/T

But did you see this?

Indian Official Demoted Over Oil For Food?

What now India?

11 minutes ago-

India Involved in Oil For Food?

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:23 am 7. madawaskan:

mrp

Ironic-Tim Blair is reporting that it has spread to Belgium and he is looking for more sources on the info-Belgium only has one Sunday paper…

I also need to take the time to tell Roger that I did not agree that he is being unfair on covering this-quite the opposite.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:27 am 8. Sandy P:

I wasn’t raised a francophile, so I have an opposite view. Mine’s more of being surrounded w/WWII books and “It was a dirty, smelly old city when I was there, (56-58 complimens of the US Army) and it won’t have changed.”

Got off the tour bus and some old man yelled “Americans go home.”

You have no idea the self-control needed not to click the heels, extend the arm and reply “Zeig Heil.” But I am an American, I am polite in other peoples’ countries.

1st republic v. 5th……………..So much for the “cultural exception.”

Well, markus, fraternite and equalite don’t exactly mesh w/liberte. They’ve been wrong since Day 1.

Plus, earlier this summer Jacko basically said unregulated anglo-saxon market capitalism is the new communism.

Looking forward to the history books on his reign.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:33 am 9. tefta:

“The France of the Mind Goes Up in Smoke” not surprising since your romanticized vision was all smoke and mirrors designed to mask the reality that all your heroes were waiting for Uncle Joe to come and save them from American materialism.

But for the Marshall Plan, France would have voluntarily turned into a Soviet satellite and with it, the rest of western Europe as well.

Will we step in and take French chestnuts out of the fire again? Short answer, no. Long answer, hell no.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:38 am 10. Michael_B:

“He would also be the first Jewish leader of France.” Markus – historian, social commentator, film critic extraordinaire

Actually Markus, before Leon Blum there was Adolphe Cremieux in the 19th century and then after WWII, a PM (or Pres.?) during the late 40s or 50s.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:46 am 11. Host:

Pierre Mendes-France

He ran a campaign to get the Fench to drink milk instead of wine. It was all over theMetro the first time I visited Paris in the 50s.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:54 am 12. Mikey:

Markus, I belive DeVillepin would qualify as a pompous leftist. He certainly more than qualifies as a pompous ass.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:55 am 13. vegetius:

Can everyone say “schadenfreunde”?

What’s worse than the riots is the lame, feckless,

insipid response of the government.

A truly decadent civilization is one that will not

defend itself.

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:00 am 14. timmah!:

Forget Euro-Disney–the French could make a fortune in revolutionary tourism. Think how much any Starbucks-smashing globalization protester would pay to join the revolution and stick it to the man! Charge American college students an arm and a leg to come and firebomb a Citroen, thereby showing their solidarity with, like, whatever. And you’d get a quarter’s worth of credit at Berkeley!

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:08 am 15. scott:

“Mister,we could use a man like Charles DeGaulle again…”

Pierre Mendes-France pulled the plug on French Indochina(so he was smart).

I’m kind of shocked at how insipid the response of the government has been.I thought that the PM was some kind of Napoleon lover.You think that NB would put up with this?

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:09 am 16. beautifulatrocities:

Reports on the existence of a WWII resistance have been greatly exaggerated. Meanwhile, Villepin has been named head of new Vichy caliphate….

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:24 am 17. markus:

I stand corrected on Leon Blum and Cremieux.

Here’s an interesting factoid: one death so far. ONE DEATH IN RIOTS APPROACHING THE TWO WEEK MARK. This figure wouldn’t have anything to do with gun control laws, would it?

“DeVillepin would qualify as a pompous leftist. He certainly more than qualifies as a pompous ass.”

This guy, the one hired by the right-wing, conservative Chirac?:

“His crackdown on militancy has included tighter security controls and making it a requirement for the country’s imams to take courses on the language, laws and customs of France.

“We need a strong policy to combat radical Islam,” he said in December 2004.

“It is used as a breeding-ground for terrorism. We cannot afford not to watch them very closely.”

He unveiled a raft of anti-immigration measures which proved popular in France, including an “immigration police force” and tighter visa regulations.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2768503.stm

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:30 am 18. Mikey:

Scott, the Emperor would have deployed the artillery and Guard on the first day. On the second he would have shot anyone who advocated appeasement. Napoleon Bonaparte didn’t have a warm and fuzzy side, and he didn’t give a rat’s tail what your greivance was, no one rebelled against the Emperor and lived.

The current clowns in office are reacting to this with all the paralysis that eerily resembles the debacle of 1940. The only saving grace is there aren’t enemy armored columns cutting into France.

Yet.

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:33 am 19. Ray:

EU Referendum has just posted the comment that they are surprised that the Americans are not gloating over the French riots. After all, the French gloated over the Katrina riots in New Orleans. The reason that the American mainstream media are not gloating is that they were also gloating over the New Orleans riots, seeing them as a loss of face for Bush.

The French riots are a vindication for Bush’s anti-terrorism actions and therefore are relegated to the importance of Ted Kennedy’s swimming abilities (page 25). Americans should realize that these riots are not terrorist in nature but rather, the result of a large number of hooligans that have nothing better to do.

A hard response is necessary before the movement is “hijacked” by the real islamists.

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:36 am 20. Supercat:

Well *I’m* gloating.

Roger: “Scott”?? That’s “F.” to you buddy.

Maybe it’s a generational thing, but thank God I never suffered a foolish romantic Francophile stage — even after indulging in Hemingway and Fitzgerald as a (non-rioting) youth.

As for the gun-control comment above, you may be right with respect to Europe! Europeans probably cannot be trusted with guns any more than they can be trusted with real armies and power (which of course is why we Americans disarmed them and have babysat them for 60 years). I think I see the light. Thank God I’m not a Euro.

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:53 am 21. jerry:

Some interesting information from the Captain’s Quarters.

From APF on 9/2:

“…An Algerian Islamist organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), has issued a call for action against France which it describes as “enemy number one”, intelligence officials said Tuesday.

“The only way to teach France to behave is jihad and the Islamic martyr,” the group’s leader Abu Mossab Abdelwadoud, also own as Abdelmalek Dourkdal, was quoted as saying in an Internet message earlier this month.

“France is our enemy number one, the enemy of our religion, the enemy of our community,” he was quoted as saying. … Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that the risk of terrorist attack in France is “at a very high level… There are cells operating on our territory.”

From the Washington Post 10/19:

“…French police investigating plans by a group of Islamic extremists to attack targets in Paris discovered last month that the group was recruiting French citizens to train in the Middle East and return home to carry out terrorist attacks, sources familiar with the investigation said.

One French official said the extremists were using a virtual “underground railroad” through Syria to spirit European and Middle Eastern citizens into and out of Iraq. A senior French law enforcement official, who declined to be quoted by name because he was speaking about classified information, said French citizens had undergone terrorist training at camps in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

“There’s always been an enormous jihad zone to train people to fight in their country of origin,” the official said. “We saw it Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and now we’re seeing it in Iraq…”

Given this information that pre-dates the start of the riots how do we know if these riots aren’t being organized and sustained by Islamicists?

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:59 am 22. jedrury:

The photographs are riveting.

How can one possibly justify such carnage.

How does one explain to a small merchant selling cheap rugs at the Clichy Sur Bois flea market that “we burned your old Renault because we are outraged because we have not been assimilated into French life.”

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:01 am 23. richard mcenroe:

Markus, please. We already know the rioters have guns. The low incidence of deaths is because a) they have not yet reached Non-Muslim residential areas and b) untrained Arabs tend to have no idea in hell what the rear sight is for.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:07 am 24. Sandy P:

Is that the man who was beaten into a coma and died?

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:07 am 25. richard mcenroe:

Markus, please. We already know the rioters have guns. The low incidence of deaths is because a) they have not yet reached Non-Muslim residential areas and b) untrained Arabs tend to have no idea in hell what the rear sight is for.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:08 am 26. RogerA:

Markus–I didnt know anyone of any political stripe believes that gun control laws reduce violence–the empirical evidence to the contrary is quite compelling;

And–the rioting is, ummmm, OK because there have only been (I know believe) two deaths? There are “good” riots and “bad” riots?

And the statements of the French elite about what they would do is consistent with what they have actually done? Do you believe an effective central government is one that cannot control massive civil unrest?

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:11 am 27. Sandy P:

Kind of OT via Lucianne:

There are an amazing number of French fingerprints all over the Plame-Wilson affair. While it is not easy to penetrate the dark fog of lies, there is a highly consistent pattern pointing to French government involvement with a Watergate-style assault on the American Presidency, fronted by Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

In 2002 French intelligence forged the notorious document claiming that Saddam tried to obtain Niger uranium. The Italian middle man,Rocco Martino, later confessed to French involvement in open court. Rocco Martino might sound like a small-time mafia hood from the Sopranos. Actually, he works at times for Italian military intelligence. The truth about the French connection came out when Martino confessed in court that the French had given him the forged document to peddle to various intelligence agencies. The Italians and French have had a furious war of words ever since then about who was responsible for the forgery.

—-

I remember Rantburg speculating about this when the brouhaha started.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4970

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:15 am 28. Godzilla:

This is getting serious. Fatwas, calls for calm, all ineffective. Dammit, nothing’s working to get those kids to stop.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:25 am 29. Sandy P:

Ohh, I just love guilt by association:

…Joseph Wilson had intimate French connections for many years before his mint tea-sipping journey to Niger. In fact, he met his first wife at the French Embassy in Washington. His second wife, Jacqueline, to whom he was still married when he took up with Valerie Plame, was a former French diplomat. There is even a report that she was a

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:29 am 30. RogerA:

The oleagenous M. de Villepin in his recent study on Napolean should perhaps recall the efficacy of “…a whiff of grapeshot…”

For those more learned in French politics than am I a question: how much of the immoblisme of the French Government is due to Presidential politics in the upcoming election? Given the self-absorbed nature of the French elite, perhaps they care more about their ability to become President than they do about their constituents–Surely the status of les jeunes proves their concern for that particular group of people.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:32 am 31. RogerA:

The oleagenous M. de Villepin in his recent study on Napolean should perhaps recall the efficacy of “…a whiff of grapeshot…”

For those more learned in French politics than am I a question: how much of the immoblisme of the French Government is due to Presidential politics in the upcoming election? Given the self-absorbed nature of the French elite, perhaps they care more about their ability to become President than they do about their constituents–Surely the status of les jeunes proves their concern for that particular group of people.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:35 am 32. markus:

richard, “supercat”, sandy, roger,. others — I’m not defending the rioters, but I am mystified (also gratified) that the death toll is so low. Compare it if you will to death toll in American riots.

On that note, I don’t think that Europeans are going to listen to American finger-wagging about this matter any more than we appreciated getting lecutured to by the rest of the world in the wake of the LA ‘92 riots, or during other disturbances that revealed our own nation’s dirty laundry.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:35 am 33. Coisty:

markus: “Laurent Fabius, who I believe is the leader of the Socialists, sounds typically limpwristed, but not terribly pompous. (He would also be the first Jewish leader of France.)”

Laurent Fabius has already been leader of France (sort of). He was a Prime Minister under Mitterand until the 1986 elections when Chirac became PM with Mitterand remaining President. I believe Michel Debre, a Prime Minister under De Gaulle, was also Jewish.

The anger directed at Sarkozy seems to have more to do with him calling the rioters ‘riff-raff” (not scum). The interviews of Arabs on Canadian TV and Euronews emphasised it saying it was humiliating to be called such names. Could this be another case of the bizarre Muslim obsession with shame and honour getting out of hand?

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:43 am 34. RogerA:

Markus–then we CAN agree that we (Well, at least you and me) are all relieved about the low death toll–My only concern was the assertion that it was somehow tied to good gun control.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:43 am 35. ras:

The intifadists (I still assert that “riot” is simply not le bon mot) are shooting. That they are missing their marks is more from a lack of skill than intent. Unfortunately, marksmanship improves rapidly with practice.

And the stated death toll even presumes accurate reporting; unlikely under the circumstances. Reporters will be recycling govt-supplied numbers.

As for the fatwa not working, as noted before, there is a “tragedy of the intifada commons” incentive trap at play. An intifadist leader would be shamed if he withdrew and the other leaders didn’t, and his followers would switch. They are compelled to continue.

So unless they all withdraw at once – which presumably could only be instigated by an overwhelming show of force by France, one that would be no shame to back down from – the violence will continue.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:47 am 36. dougf:

On that note, I don’t think that Europeans are going to listen to American finger-wagging about this matter–Markus

No matter. It’s jolly good fun anyway. Looks so devine on them, don’t you think?

Every cloud really does have a silver lining,I guess.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:48 am 37. beautifulatrocities:

Robert Spencer explains it:

“Young men” rioted in France. These “young men” were also “disaffected youth.” They were “angry & frustrated” because they, these “young men,” were “jobless.” These “jobless” young men & their families lived in “bleak” housing projects and though all medical care and education was free for them (all of it, period) these “young men” were “angry & frustrated” because apparently the state subsidies are not enough to overcome that “anger” & “frustration” & those “demands” which must be met. This despite the fact that those subsidies amount to round about $1,200 a month, which quite a few French non-Muslims are delighted to receive, & which comes along with all that free (and where there is no disruption from Muslim students, often excellent) education and free (first-world, not Muslim world) health care.

Shit, I’d be pissed too!!!

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:48 am 38. RogerA:

I DO have to confess to a wonderful feeling of schadenfreunden in all of this–especially after the American bashing by Europeans about our response to natural disasters. Admitedly a juvenile attitude, but DAMN it feels good…..

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:51 am 39. markus:

RogerA — like I said, I’m mystified: if not gun control, or what I am assuming is a low level of civilian gun ownership in France, why has there been only one fatality, in addition to the two youths whose deaths sparked the initial disturbances? Gun control and low gun ownership seem to be just as good of an explanation as any.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:53 am 40. ras:

Markus,

If the Muslims get better arms and start using them, the French people will too, and the gun control debate simply won’t matter. Reality will trump ideology.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:54 am 41. MikeD:

I received this note from a French colleague this morning in reponse to my query about whether the French government was as paralized as it seems. I don’t know that it offers great additional intelligence but it does give a local “on the ground perspective”. Consider it for whatever insight it gives each of you.

“I think they wait for worse. You know all our politicians are just looking forward to their next elections. Experience shows that they shall win the next elections if people are really against all these rioters (is that english?).

And let me add that the real problem is education. All these young people have no rules. They practice free violence. They have not received education. They have no references, no guides, no values. So that crisis is deep and it is a society crisis. What can we do? It comes from 40 years of zero action whatever left or right were governing the country.

The big question for many people is: how can we sort this problem? There is no key answer, there is no answer with possible immediate result. There is no legal or official organisation behind those people. The government cannot speak to any representative. It is a kind of terrorism.

In the next towns I know some cars were burnt last night. I think facts are quite well given by CNN. I do not agree with all comments (as usual). The french media do not reflect the french opinion (I think 80 or 90 % of people are unhappy and wish a firm reply to the riots) and they do not talk of the real problem (just poor life conditions, unemployment etc.).. France is doing too much in the past for poor and unemployment. People are too much assisted and you have champions of ways of living very well without working during years. Obviously, it is not a good direction. We also reach a democracy question (and limitation) where the government in place never wish to unplease people: in the end, nothing moves and situation worsens.”

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:56 am 42. ras:

Whoops, a little Stockholm Syndrome by proxy in my last comment, I think! I should have said, “If the Muslims get better arms and start using them, the non-Muslims will too…”

Tip of the slung, Sigmund, no more.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:56 am 43. Bostonian:

On that “scum/thug/riffraff” bit, No Pasaran notes:

“It appears that Nicolas Sarkozy was deliberately demonized in the TV reports of him using his strong language earlier in the week. In fact, there was footage available showing Sarkozy using the word

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:59 am 44. Orson2:

Captain Ed adds MSM-neglected backgroujnd to the rioting.

“On October 19th, John Ward Anderson reported [for The Washington Post] to American readers that the Islamists had recruited French citizens for Middle East training in jihad, with the intention of having them initiate warfare within France:

[the Captain's pull quotes]

‘French police investigating plans by a group of Islamic extremists to attack targets in Paris discovered last month that the group was recruiting French citizens to train in the Middle East and return home to carry out terrorist attacks, sources familiar with the investigation said.

‘One French official said the extremists were using a virtual ‘underground railroad’ through Syria to spirit European and Middle Eastern citizens into and out of Iraq. A senior French law enforcement official, who declined to be quoted by name because he was speaking about classified information, said French citizens had undergone terrorist training at camps in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

‘ ‘There’s always been an enormous jihad zone to train people to fight in their country of origin,’ the official said. ‘We saw it Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and now we’re seeing it in Iraq.’ ‘

[The Captain continues]

“That prelude certainly seems more than a mere coincidence to me. Within six weeks of the GSPC announcement, we see a massive and coordinated uprising originating from the ghettoes in which Algerian and other Muslim refugees and their families live. The ‘riots’ have sophisticated coordination between cell leaders, using the Internet and instant messaging as well as cell phones — an odd tool for a spontaneous demonstration where one neighborhood would hardly have those phone numbers at the ready.

“The Islamist connection might get ignored by the media now, but when it involved Iraq as a training base (as the Post article did), they had no hesitation in writing about it. One wonders why they have suddenly developed amnesia about it now.”

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005746.php

One wonders, indeed.

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:04 am 45. Orson2:

Captain Ed adds MSM-neglected backgroujnd to the rioting.

“On October 19th, John Ward Anderson reported [for The Washington Post] to American readers that the Islamists had recruited French citizens for Middle East training in jihad, with the intention of having them initiate warfare within France:

[the Captain's pull quotes]

‘French police investigating plans by a group of Islamic extremists to attack targets in Paris discovered last month that the group was recruiting French citizens to train in the Middle East and return home to carry out terrorist attacks, sources familiar with the investigation said.

‘One French official said the extremists were using a virtual ‘underground railroad’ through Syria to spirit European and Middle Eastern citizens into and out of Iraq. A senior French law enforcement official, who declined to be quoted by name because he was speaking about classified information, said French citizens had undergone terrorist training at camps in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

‘ ‘There’s always been an enormous jihad zone to train people to fight in their country of origin,’ the official said. ‘We saw it Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, and now we’re seeing it in Iraq.’ ‘

[The Captain continues]

“That prelude certainly seems more than a mere coincidence to me. Within six weeks of the GSPC announcement, we see a massive and coordinated uprising originating from the ghettoes in which Algerian and other Muslim refugees and their families live. The ‘riots’ have sophisticated coordination between cell leaders, using the Internet and instant messaging as well as cell phones — an odd tool for a spontaneous demonstration where one neighborhood would hardly have those phone numbers at the ready.

“The Islamist connection might get ignored by the media now, but when it involved Iraq as a training base (as the Post article did), they had no hesitation in writing about it. One wonders why they have suddenly developed amnesia about it now.”

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005746.php

One wonders, indeed.

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:08 am 46. mrp:

Just my thoughts:

It seems to me that the riots are following the classic Israeli-Palestinian “intifada” script:

1) “Youths” armed with stones, bricks, slingshots taunt and injure police. Their leadership carefully calibrates the violence by deploying under-18 years old teenagers armed with sub-lethal weapons. The objective is to provoke the police/military into escalating the confrontation to lethal violence in front of the international media. It also serves as a test of the state’s will to suppress the uprising.

2) After a period of (1) and with the well-disciplined law-enforcement officers refusing to use lethal force against rock-throwing teens, the provocateurs then start using more dangerous items – to injure officers and wear them down, both physically and through demoralization.

3) At some point lethal force by the state is used to suppress the conflict, thereby endowing the (term of choice here) to assume the role of victim.

4) The “victims” are now free to use whatever weapons and means are necessary to destroy the state entity.

So far, we’ve seen the conflict escalate from rock-throwing to molotov cocktails used within the “Zones” to a nation-wide arson spree. Further escalation against the state now includes the use of firearms (using birdshot) to inflict injury on the officers. Even the Palis didn’t burn Christian churches, though. The Muslims are really pushing hard.

I think we are seeing a very sophisticated minuet between the French government and the French Muslim controllers. Each is seeking the “victimization” role – The government clearly wants the public moral “high ground” before cracking down, the Muslim leadership wants a defining state-authorized “massacre” of downtrodden “youths” gunned down by trigger-happy agents of the State. One might suppose that there’s a whole lot of behind-the-scenes negotiating between the major media organs and the state and Muslim combatants.

When the real bullets start flying, then the train-station bombings, assassinations, IEDs, car-bombings, etc. will soon follow. The Muslims are armed to the teeth; France’s gun-control laws have only disarmed the law-abiding. I suspect that it will only be a matter of weeks before Paris’ international airports are closed to commercial flights.

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:08 am 47. beautifulatrocities:

Orson2: Someone pointed out that torching cars is a deliberate tactic precisely because it falls short of outright murder, which the ‘insurgents’ know would provoke a lethal response. So no, it’s not the virtues of gun control, & if I lived in France, I’d be buying a black-market .357 as fast as I could.

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:13 am 48. chuck:

People, please,

The word is schadenfreude. You know, freude as in joy, not freunde as in friend. Just a short reminder.

Thank you

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:55 am 49. utron:

I just read Thomas Sowell

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:00 am 50. utron:

I just read Thomas Sowell

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:01 am 51. utron:

Blech. Apologies to all for the double post.

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:02 am 52. jerry:

More on scene observations from TCS…

http://www.techcentralstation.com/1107055.html

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:07 am 53. Stephen_M:

mrpIn line with your “very sophisticated minuet between the French government and the French Muslim controllers.” From The Washington Times’ Jennifer Joan Lee. Paris police fear rioters’ heavy arms

Police officers, exhausted and dispirited after 11 nights of street battles, say their mainly young African and Arab adversaries have access to sophisticated weapons including grenades and could soon begin using them.

A dozen officers were injured, two of them seriously, after being shot with hunting rifles fitted with lead pellets during rioting last night in the suburb of Grigny, south of Paris, police said.

Jean-Christophe Carne, president of a police trade union, told The Washington Times before last night’s outbreak that police officers were increasingly pessimistic that civic order would be restored anytime soon.

“Most of these kids are being coached by professional petty criminals and gang leaders in the suburbs,” said Mr. Carne, president of Action Police CFTC.

“In the past, when we have cracked down on these criminals in their homes, we found drugs, grenades and heavy weapons such as guns. While they haven’t started using these arms yet, there’s also no reason to think they wouldn’t.”

About 200 rioters took part in last night’s rioting in Grigny, pelting police with stones and bottles and shooting shotgun pellets. “The pellets will not kill a person if fired from a distance, but in some circumstances, they can do serious harm, such as blind someone,” said a police spokesman.

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:15 am 54. Ed Poinsett:

I think the issue of gun control is a non-starter here. In almost every US riot there was massive looting and infringement of property. Looters were shot on sight as they should be. I’ve heard very little about looting in Paris, although one would think that there has to be some. The rioters seem to be mainly burning trash bins and cars. Few people would step outside to defend their car and dust bin against a mob, but many would fight a home intrusion.

There only seem to be isolated instances of the rioters using firearms themselves, so that would also explain part of it. They’re primarily using molotov cocktail hit and run tactics, not storming barricades.

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:18 am 55. Coisty:

Melanie Phillips “far from the claim that the disturbances have been caused by French policy of segregating Muslims into ghettoes, this is a war being waged FOR separate development.” http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles/archives/001475.html

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:27 am 56. Syl:

My feelings about France coincide somewhat with Roger’s…without the personal connections…and began during the same period of time.

I also find making fun of the French, Freedom Fries, and all that good stuff enjoyable and consider a part of a long long mutual tradition.

But, I don’t seriously feel a deep antipathy towards France. And I believe very firmly that we are closer than we are farther apart when it comes to this worldwide struggle.

If France were ever to ask for our help, for any reason, I would gladly give it.

In other words I’d shut up, give help, then go back to complaining, which seems to sum up our relationship over the years.

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:42 am 57. jerry:

Syl:

I am not inclined to help France. We helped them in 1917-18. If you read any of the diaries of the Doughboys who served both in France and Germany you will discover that Germans showed for respect and affection for Americans then did the French.

The French first appeased Hitler and then collaborated. France was a better ally of the Third Reich then Italy. We liberated them on the way to Germany and they have abused pretty much ever since.

No, this time the Yanks aren’t coming. Perhaps President Chirac should call Germany. When he finds out who is in charge he could ask them for military assistence. It has been three generations since the Germans have enjoyed a parade through Paris. I am told my Grandfather enjoyed the experience in 1870.

Nov 7, 2005 - 11:09 am 58. Syl:

Jerry

Thanks for that link.

I think Nidra Poller nails it. spot on.

Nov 7, 2005 - 11:19 am 59. Paul:

I’m with Jerry. After what France did in the run up to the Iraq war, after all their sneering condescension towards supposed crude, bloodthirsty Americans, and their trumpeting of the imagined superiority of their socio-economic policies I think it’s high time to let this spoiled child clean up it’s own mess.

Every time we turn the other cheek and bail out nations that openly disrespect us we generate further contempt for ourselves. It’s the international equivalent of welfare, and leads to the dependency and hatred that this foolish, and by now thoroughly discredited, leftist folly engenders every time.

Nov 7, 2005 - 11:45 am 60. vegetius:

CHUCK:

“People, please,

The word is schadenfreude. You know, freude as in joy, not freunde as in friend. Just a short reminder.”

You’re right, of course. But, there is something about schadenfreunde (”damaging friends”) that

is accidentally apropros for Fanco/Americn relations;-)

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:03 pm 61. vegetius:

CHUCK:

“People, please,

The word is schadenfreude. You know, freude as in joy, not freunde as in friend. Just a short reminder.”

You’re right, of course. But, there is something about schadenfreunde (”damaging friends”) that

is accidentally apropros for Fanco/Americn relations;-)

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:04 pm 62. Captain Hate:

I’m with Syl. Dealing with France reminds me of dealing with my brother: Infuriating as hell but, when you remove all the contentious surface garbage, we’re both on the same side.

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:10 pm 63. dougf:

Infuriating as hell but, when you remove all the contentious surface garbage, we’re both on the same side.—CH

Not really.

Well in the very strict sense of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, then France and the US share some long-term cultural interests, but otherwise, not so much.

France needs to dig itself out of its own hole, and should it ever come to the point of them ASKING the US for aid, the situation would be virtually uncorrectable in any event.

I don’t think we need worry about coming to France’s aid any time soon, but if you do so in the future, remember to have a plan “B” as backup. You can’t be guaranteed that there will be as many small boats available for extrication when the ‘common front’ collapses once again.

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:25 pm 64. Knucklehead:

I’m with Jerry – no help for France. They’re big enough to fend for themselves or turn to the German and Russian friends they prefer.

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:27 pm 65. Bostonian:

France has been *ARMING* our enemies for quite some time. And Chirac pledged an “indestructible friendship” with Syria (exact words). And ten thousand other things.

No, they’re not our allies.

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:33 pm 66. Ray:

Shame on you Jerry,

I would be delighted to assist France in her time of need. Just as both countries shared the indignities of Viet Nam and share the burden of John Kerry who grew up in France (who by the way, served in Viet Nam), I open my heart to those troubled French. Their most recent problem is the huge number of detainees (french word) that they have no place to put.

Viola! Americans to the rescue! We can help by stockpiling a few Islamofacists in le Hotel Guantanamo! Tonights menu is foi gra and Chateau la Tour. But wait. The French complain that Guantanamo is a horrible place, and deserts are not on par with Parisisan cuisine.

Ah well, we tried.

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:37 pm 67. Bostonian:

All this reminds me that a couple of years ago, someone (maybe Wretchard) pointed out that a THREE-way war is occurring, with internationalists and leftists forming the third party.

Nov 7, 2005 - 12:37 pm 68. Michael_B:

Couple of links from the CounterTerrorism blog. The story of French immigrant Khaled Kelkal, couple of excerpts:

“I had the ability to succeed, but I could not fit in because I told myself it would be impossible to become totally integrated.”.

“At the end of July [1995], a bomb exploded in a Paris metro station, killing seven people. [...] On August 26, French investigators found Kelkal’s fingerprints on an unexploded device that had been placed along the tracks of the TGV …, the high-speed train that is the pride of France.”

Also, Intifada in Paris.

Nov 7, 2005 - 1:00 pm 69. Michael_B:

That second referenced post at the CounterTerrorism blog actually excerpts this article at The Weekly Standard, which contains the following excerpt:

“Two Muslim youths–one black, one Arab–were electrocuted at a power relay station on October 27. The circumstances are sketchy: Were the youths being chased by the police because they were suspects in a break-in? Were they being chased for no reason? Or were they–as Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy claims, and the preliminary report of the prosecutor has now confirmed–never pursued by the police at all?”

Nov 7, 2005 - 1:09 pm 70. mrp:

It looks like the French intifada is already achieving results:

From the 11/7 Daily Telegraph:

And Action Police CFTC, France’s police union, urged the government to impose a curfew on the other trouble-hit areas and call in the army to control the rioters.

“Nothing seems to be able to stop the civil war that spreads a bit more every day across the whole country,” they said in a statement.

“The events we’re living through now are without precedent since the end of the Second World War.” (emphasis added)

When the cops start calling a situation a “civil war”, it’s probably a civil war.

Nov 7, 2005 - 1:18 pm 71. WichitaBoy:

Even when there are no riots, such suburbs are strewn with the carcasses of burnt-out cars, like skeletons in a desert, and one can see the blackened remains of shops that have been put to the torch. Drug-trafficking goes on openly, and the hostility to outsiders is palpable.

That seems to me a perfect description of the projects in New Orleans I used to drive past every day.

Nov 7, 2005 - 1:22 pm 72. jerry:

Michael:

This piece of information is quite consistant with a pre-planned event looking for a cause. Two examples come to mind. Last year in Kosovo a rumor began circulating that Serbs chased several Muslim children into a stream. This led to an orgy of destruction that resulted in the burning of Orthodox Churches and the murder of Serbs. The UN investigated and found that the rumor was false. The level and organization of destruction clearly indicate that this event was pre-planned by Albanian Muslims. The UN did not identify the source of the rumor but my experience tells me that it was started by the radicals.

The second example is the 1992 LA Riots. It was reported that gang leaders made a truce with the intention of rioting for fun and profit. Police Commisioner Gates later said the there would have been a riot regardless of the outcome of the trial.

In this case we know that the teenagers were in fact electorcuted but I would wager that the rumor that they were chased there by the police was started by radicals to incite violence against the French Government in order to reverse the Guliani-like law and order policies of Sarkozy so that they could retain and extend their control of the Muslim dominated suburbs.

[Roger, I know that is a terrible run-on sentence.]

Nov 7, 2005 - 1:28 pm 73. Knucklehead:

Mrp,

Incidents also in Berlin and Bremen.

These are deemed mere copycat affairs, however, since:

“I believe we have a sufficient social security network here for immigrants that prevents anyone from falling into any level of despair,” [Berlin Police Commissioner? Ehrhart] Koerting said. “As a result, I think there are no reasons for the situation among the immigrants to erupt here.”

Ample welfare to prevent despair. No despair, no riots (well, except for minor copycatish type stuff).

Nov 7, 2005 - 2:07 pm 74. mrp:

Knucklehead,

I read the quote given by the Berlin police commissioner and it reminded me of this (for some strange reason):

“A rrriot is an ugly thing. Up! (crrrrk) Undt I think it is chust about time that vee had one!”

Nov 7, 2005 - 2:28 pm 75. Jamie Irons:

Bostonian (8:59 AM)

You wrote:

On that “scum/thug/riffraff” bit, No Pasaran notes:

“It appears that Nicolas Sarkozy was deliberately demonized in the TV reports of him using his strong language earlier in the week. In fact, there was footage available showing Sarkozy using the word ?racaille? (riff-raff) while speaking to an inhabitant of Clichy-sous-Bois who herself had just used the word while expressing how fed up she was with local crime.

Sarko answered her using her own words. In politics, that?s a way of communicating empathy. Her words were edited out and never shown in the insuing days. His weren?t. ?Arr괠sur Images? showed the whole exchange today. “

[End Quote]

That is fascinating; I hadn’t seen that background on the racaille incident.

I commented earlier today on how the press, at a loss for an explanation for the “rioting,” (I don’t think these are typical riots), keeps returning to Sarko’s utterance.

Feedin’ the Meme

Jamie Irons

Nov 7, 2005 - 2:38 pm 76. atmx:

if not gun control, or what I am assuming is a low level of civilian gun ownership in France, why has there been only one fatality, in addition to the two youths whose deaths sparked the initial disturbances? Gun control and low gun ownership seem to be just as good of an explanation as any.

Criminal gangs in France have easy access to weapons as far as I know. Some are participating in the violence. It is likely they holding back on lethal violence intentionally for other than noble reasons.

There is some level of planning and coordination behind these riots and it is more than likely that they are keeping the violence subthreshold so that they can riot even longer, hoping to do more damage to the government and maximize what gains they expect to get from the rioting. I also would suggest it is because the rioters are trying to provoke a lethal response from the police, one which they want to claim is unjustified based on the rioters actions so far.

Nov 7, 2005 - 2:38 pm 77. Knucklehead:

Mrp,

Can’t we all just have some sponge cake and a little wine?

What knockers!

Nov 7, 2005 - 2:41 pm 78. Jim Rockford:

Markus — read Dalyrymple’s column on the banlieus. The criminals in the cites have AK-47s and grenade launchers. And use them. Frequently. In their criminal activity. Sarko initially responded to the death of a 10 year old boy in a gang shootout with AK-47s by calling the criminals “scum.”

So far the rioters have exercised brinkmanship restraint not using the AK-47 and other military arms common throughout the suburbs of France. Don’t expect that to hold forever. The rioters demands are sacking Sarko, legal status of no French law in the suburbs (their own Muslim legal system), separate legal systems for Muslims outside the suburbs, and rolling back of the headscarf ban.

All of which Chirac seems intent on accommodating. However the business community is enraged (businesses burnt out in the urban areas proper, no law and order) as are the average French people seeing Muslim radicals and rioters being stronger than the State. Riots have spread all over the nation, and into Germany and Belgium.

There is enough anecdotal evidence (Switzerland, Finland) to suggest that in relatively homogenous societies regulated private gun ownership does not cause the sky to fall in Road Warrior type bloodbaths; and in societies with gun bans on private ownership (UK, France, Germany, and Ireland) criminal gangs arm themselves to the teeth with serious military weapons without any serious consequences. Beyond that there is little to conclude about gun ownership in Europe. Rwanda had almost no guns and the slaughter there was almost entirely by machete or stones or fire. Israel is armed to the teeth and yet it’s citizens very rarely kill one another. It is the politics that restrain the rioters (who posses startling amounts of weaponry). That won’t last forever as C-C weakens due to events.

Note: local French governments and communities are banding together to either hire private security forces or acquire black market weapons as Chirac has been unable to provide Job #1 which is security. There can be no doubt this is a direct political challenge to Chirac (who is neither classically American Left nor Right but traditional French Statist). You can also expect gun laws to be loosened so that people can protect themselves with the obvious failure of the State to do so.

Nov 7, 2005 - 2:53 pm 79. Patrick Tyson:

jerry—

Police Commisioner Gates later said the there would have been a riot regardless of the outcome of the trial.

From Wikipedia…

On the first evening of the riots, Gates told reporters that the situation would soon be under control, and attended a previously scheduled fundraising dinner.

That is a fact. There isn’t a strong enough word to describe the former Chief of Police before, during and after the riots. @##&()$!

Nov 7, 2005 - 3:00 pm 80. ras:

Bostonian,

I think the 3-way war article, IIRC, was by den Beste. The war he posutlated was more a war of ideas than bullets.

He named 3 major competing value systems of classical liberalism, islam, and modern socialism (can’t remember if those were the terms he used, but it summarizes the gist of his thought), and noted that of the three, only two – islam and socialism – were being actively promoted and spread.

I presume if you site-search his place with google you can find it in the archives.

Nov 7, 2005 - 3:17 pm 81. jerry:

Patrick:

My comments were not designed to pat Gates on the head. Just to point that there was going to be a riot one way or another.

If you recall, Gates when into a funk on the first day of the riots because all the criticism the police had gotten over the Rodney King case. Contrary to what has been written on this board about how the the LAPD handled the first hours of the riot, Gates witheld the Police because he was pissed at the LA political leadership.

Nov 7, 2005 - 3:28 pm 82. Patrick Tyson:

jerry—

I went to high school in the city block bounded by Hoover Street, 71st Street, Menlo Avenue and 70th Street. That put me one block north and five blocks east of Normandie Avenue and Florence Avenue during a great number of days between 1972 and 1976. My mother still lives within 3 miles of that intersection.

As I wrote a few months ago on this blog…

In 1992 there was another riot. I was not surprised. The LAPD had been a law unto itself for far too long and a jury in Simi Valley had just seemed to indicate that there was nothing wrong with that. Ground zero of this riot was a few miles west and north of the 1965 epicenter. My mother still lived in the same house. My father had died a couple of months earlier. This was, like any riot, a stupid and senseless occurance that came to an end the moment Pete Wilson put the National Guard on the street. My mother did not leave.

I politely suggest, being this is someone else’s blog, that your sources of information regarding the 1992 riot are mistaken regarding what would have happened had a guilty verdict been returned and overstating a lot on the topic of cooperation. For instance, given where my mother lives, I’m grateful for coordination, if it was such, that resulted in city blocks of private homes not being torched.

Had I my way, Darryl Gates, because of his response on April 29th, 1992, would be in prison today.

Nov 7, 2005 - 4:13 pm 83. thibaud:

Totten serves more nonsense to the anti-Islamist know-nothing crowd:

The disgruntled of Paris, on the other hand, are inviting a brutal crackdown from a state infinitely less oppressive that the Syrian Baath regime. While some parts of the Middle East import liberal

Nov 7, 2005 - 4:14 pm 84. thibaud:

By Totten’s logic, France must inoculate itself against the contagion of black American hip-hop culture, lest more illiberal gangsta behavior result.

Nov 7, 2005 - 4:16 pm 85. dougf:

Where’s Anderson Cooper when you need him?–Thibaud

OK. I tried to be a ’sport’ about this ,but now you really have gone too far.

Anderson Cooper is NOT to be mentioned in any other context than for example: To-day Anderson Cooper left the moribund CNN network for a new postion as AccuWeatherman at WAWH.

There are limits,Thibaud,there are limits.–

Nov 7, 2005 - 4:27 pm 86. chuck:

thibaud,

As anyone with any familiarity with black French culture knows, the French hip-hop and “verlan” culture is the dominant one in the projects…

But hey, this is the blogosphere. No need to educate yourself or seek facts; just reach for that trusty old anti-Islamist meme and fire away.

What, no credit? I pointed this out yesterday!

Nov 7, 2005 - 4:37 pm 87. JK Ribera:

I’m not sure how Thibaud would analyze this, or if he would want to, but many people think the Salafists of Algeria are the most extreme of all Islamist groups. Algeria, of course, is the closest of all Islamic countries to France historically and probably in terms of immigrant population. Whether this means anything I wouldn’t want to say. But I wouldn’t bet against it.

Nov 7, 2005 - 4:49 pm 88. Jamie Irons:

thibaud

Deferring to your first-hand knowledge of the situation in France, and your much closer connection to French society, I am going to take as my point of departure, until I am proved wrong, that these “riots” (I don’t think they are at all typical riots*) have nothing whatever to do with Islam or Islamism.

Early today I wrote that we should label the rioters, this racaille, barbarians, a term which should not be offensive to any religious or ethnic group, and has the great virtue of being simultaneously unsentimental and accurate.

Jamie Irons

“A riot is an ugly thing. Und…I think it’s just about time we have one!” Inspector Kemp, Young Frankenstein

Nov 7, 2005 - 4:56 pm 89. Coisty:

thibaud – “First, the “pathology” on display right now has f-all to do with “the Middle East and North Africa.” These are primarily second- and third-generation kids who have no connection to the lands of their grandparents and parents.”

Many parts of the US settled in the 18th century by Scots-Irish Calvinists still have very different values from those parts settled by people from East Anglia. Yes, people will be influenced by their immediate environment but they are also influenced by the thoughts, habits, and values of their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc. Ethnic and religious cultures are stronger than what the average North American thinks.

Besides, many of those second and third generation Muslims have satellite dishes and get virtually all their news from the Arab world. Many go to mosques where they also get their daily dose of anti-Western hate. Not being able to identify with the national history and culture of France (why would they?) just makes it worse.

American rappers and gangsta culture are far more influential than Islamists or Islamism

They are also influenced by their own homegrown North African (by descent) rappers. Lots of white French also listen to gangsta rap. It doesn’t seem to encourage them to riot.

No need to educate yourself or seek facts; just reach for that trusty old anti-Islamist meme and fire away

As opposed to the liberal meme about all problems being caused by “social exclusion”, poverty, and, of course, racism.

Nov 7, 2005 - 6:31 pm 90. truepeers:

No doubt I am coming to this late, but I am curious how Thibaud defines the limits of the Islamic world, which has both a religious and a secular component. We hear little about Islamic secularism, which is strange. We have the concept of a secular Jew and a post-Christian culture and a secular Judeo-Christian civilization. So why do we hear so little about the secular form of Islamic culture? Secularization is an inevitable process for all cultures.

If the Islamic is essentially (in terms of its historical emergence) an appeal to the downtroddden left out of Judeo-Christian monotheism and then later the secular ideologies that sprung from the J-C tradition (consider the Islamic appeal to African-Americans – who’s to say gangsta rap isn’t influenced by Islamic ideas? I know that sounds a very naive question, but I’m not sure how you’d prove it.), then how can the appeal to today’s downtrodden youth in France, however secular you might think these appeals to be, occur without some Islamic trappings? The secular world is nothing but an erosion of what was once sacred in one place or another.

And the evidence for such Islamic trappings in the minds of the rioters is clear enough. Why deny it? Here from Jihad Watch are just a few of many possible links that show this:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008883.php

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008888.php

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008875.php

Hat tip Pastorius at http://cuanas.blogspot.com/

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:02 pm 91. HA:

Markus,

Here’s an interesting factoid: one death so far. ONE DEATH IN RIOTS APPROACHING THE TWO WEEK MARK. This figure wouldn’t have anything to do with gun control laws, would it?

Why yes, the TWO WEEK figure has everything to do with gun control laws. The rioters know that the French government is paralyzed and that French citizens are disarmed. Weakness invites aggression and the French are getting a belly full.

Don’t get too cocky yet, Markus. The intifada is young. It won’t end with one death. And before it is over, French citizens will wish they could keep and bear arms like Americans can.

I bet one of these puppies is starting to look real good to your typical native French citizen:

http://www.springfield-armory.com/prod-rifles-m21.shtml

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:27 pm 92. thibaud:

many of those second and third generation Muslims have satellite dishes and get virtually all their news from the Arab world. Many go to mosques where they also get their daily dose of anti-Western hate.

Not really. The vast majority of these people– especially the sub-saharan africans– have never set foot in a mosque. It’s far more accurate to say that this generation has no real attachment to either culture– neither the country adopted by their grandparents or parents nor the country their grandparents or parents left behind.

The rioters in particular are the French equivalent of boyz from da hood: badly educated, poorly-supervised child-men whose prevailing cultural reference points are rap and petty crime, not Islam or African culture.

As opposed to the liberal meme about all problems being caused by “social exclusion”, poverty, and, of course, racism

Of course we all know that racism is a liberal canard that explains nothing, but somehow these darned facts keep rearing their ugly heads.

Like the fact that racial discrimination is not illegal in France. Or that there is not a single african among the senior ranks of the major French political parties, or among the ranks of VP-level and above executives among French multinationals, or among the intellectual or media elite. Or that supremely inconvenient fact that French african university graduates have a 26% unemployment rate while French white university graduates have a 5% unemployment rate.

I know it’s easier to sling memes back and forth than it is to dig a little and try to understand things on their own merits, but really, the ignorance here is embarrassing. The essential facts here are that these riots are occurring despite a judicial regime that possesses sweeping powers of search, detention, interrogation of suspected jihadists and despite a civic and popular culture that is profoundly hostile to, not friendly or mushy-wimpy-resigned towards, multiculturalism and assimilation of the african minority, and despite immigration laws that are far tougher than those of any EU nation I can think of, let alone the uS.

Folks, France is a deeply racist country: racist in educational policies, in hiring, in the behavior of its political parties, and in its definition of national identity. Again, to the French adn European mind, one cannot be both “african” and “European.” The twoness, the dual pride, of the fully assimilated yet hyphenated American immigrant is not possible under the European conception of national identity. The result is that these aimless, uneducated african kids in the banlieues belong to neither France nor Africa, neither the progressive West nor the Islamist world, neither the world of their white peers nor the world of their parents.

The only reason these facts have not been front and center in the anglosphere’s reporting on these events is the sheer ignorance of and inattention to the social realities of contemporary France.

When (if) the blogosphere’s warriors ever get past meme-slinging and start seeking to understand complex, foreign events on their terms, we’ll all be a lot better off.

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:27 pm 93. chuck:

When (if) the blogosphere’s warriors ever get past meme-slinging and start seeking to understand complex, foreign events on their terms, we’ll all be a lot better off.

You first!

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:35 pm 94. thibaud:

Truepeers,

who’s to say gangsta rap isn’t influenced by Islamic ideas? I know that sounds a very naive question, but I’m not sure how you’d prove it.

There are indeed some rappers who, in best Tupac Shakur form, make big euros by peddling filthy and virulent hatred of cops, Sarkozy, France and French history generally. The rap group NTM is France’s version of, I suppose (I’m no expert in matters rap), NWA. [NTM stands for nique ta mere, or f--- yo mutha.] The most notorious rapper is “Mr. R” (note the Americanized name to make him sound more like a US rapper), whose bestselling single “FranSSe” includes the following lyrics (translated by Olivier Gutta):

“the state can go f–itself. . . . I pee on Napoleon and General De Gaulle. . . . My niggers and my Arabs, our playground is the street with the most guns. . . . F–ing cops, sons of whores. . . . France is a lousy mother who abandoned her sons on the sidewalk. . . . My Muslim brothers are hated like my Jewish brothers were during the Reich” [at which point Mr. R's video shows footage of Hitler and of Nazi concentration camps.]

If I were really interested in pop culture criticism, I’d try to parse the above, but I doubt it’s worth the effort, not least because I’d guess that commercial motives are mingled with whatever political motives may be indicated by this nonsense. I’d merely point out that it’s highly unlikely that lyrics which pair an appeal to “Muslim brothers” with solidarity for “my Jewish brothers” would receive the Islamist seal of approval. Is that proof enough for you, peers?

In any case, commercailized odes on a cop killer don’t reveal the influence of secular “Islamic” ideas any more than American cop-killer gangsta rap reveals marxist-leninist influences.

If anything, Islamism in this milieu is a predatory, opportunistic influence hovering on the fringes. If you have to have a US analogy, maybe Farrakhan would be apt. But Farrakhan, obnoxious as he is, does not constitute a threat to the US state, or to western civilization. The LA riots were not a neo-bolshevik uprising designed to smash the state. These riots are not an “intifada”. More like a rolling race riot-cum-devil’s night party.

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:55 pm 95. chuck:

I know it’s easier to sling memes back and forth than it is to dig a little and try to understand things on their own merits, but really, the ignorance here is embarrassing. The essential facts here are that these riots are occurring despite a judicial regime that possesses sweeping powers of search, detention, interrogation of suspected jihadists and despite a civic and popular culture that is profoundly hostile to, not friendly or mushy-wimpy-resigned towards, multiculturalism and assimilation of the african minority, and despite immigration laws that are far tougher than those of any EU nation I can think of, let alone the uS.

And the simple fact remains that the North Africans are there, the law has not been enforced in the banlieue for years, and cars have been going up in flames at some twenty/night. You yourself used the latter fact to argue that nothing out of the ordinary was going on, although that level of vandalism already strikes me as extraordinary.

Add to this that noone need attend mosque to get the indoctrination: all the examples and heroes are available on French television, which has been selling the justification of jihad in other countries. I am sure the rioters regard themselves as following the heroic tradition so kindly provided them by the French.

On top of this, the rioters as you say are young and a minority, but they terrorize their neighbors. Some 70% of the adults must work, but what happens to their money and cars? There is no hope without first law and order. The rioters must be suppressed.

And how to employ someone who has grown used to the utility of threats and violence? Why should they work, especially when the state has always provided?

The simple recognition of racism will do little to solve these problems. As a practical matter, racism is going to be worse after the riots. Far, far, worse. It may turn into fascism, the form of socialism that is most appealing in these circumstances.

So Marianne is fucked and pregnant. Paternity may be in dispute but it doesn’t matter. Soon we shall see what child issues.

Nov 7, 2005 - 7:57 pm 96. Luther McLeod:

t

As your cryptic identity on occasion, insignificant, as you have no other.

Humor my lack of a proper education. There may be intellectual appeal in much of what you say. As well, much of what you say may be correct. But, being as you are addressing ‘root causes’, and have put forth your plan for solving same, such as they are. I’d be interested as to when are you going to put forth your plan for the real issues that face France? The problem you are not facing, as I see it, is the fact that many, if not most, of these ‘poor, downtrodden, alienated, and forgotten youth’ have absolutely no interest in participating in the world as we know it. What enticement would you offer them next? How much more will you accede to them? Until you have nothing left to give? Must their nihilist anarchy be the measure by which we live?

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:05 pm 97. thibaud:

Ah, in perusing “Mr. R’s” epic rap hit, I missed this key to all mythologies:

the state can go f–itself

Mr. R’s not one of the boyz from da hood, he’s one the ChicagoBoyz!

Actually, it’s even worse than mere libertarianism. In French culture, dissing the all-powerful, all-benevolent etat is one of the worst faux pas imaginable. Perhaps a high crime. Wonder how it got by Bruguiere.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:06 pm 98. ras:

Thibaud,

Do the Intifadists have too little self-esteem … or too much?

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:16 pm 99. HA:

From Michael Totten’s post:

The Lebanese people threw off the yoke of Syrian occupation, oppression, and de facto annexation while committing no violence. The Western model of civil disobedience and protest worked beautifully and, more important, it worked rapidly.

What a naive comment. Has Michael already forgotten that there was a rather large and lethal Western miltary force on Syria’s opposite border? And perhaps the threat posed by this force might have enabled the success of the Cedar Revolution? And I think Gandhi might dispute Michael’s characterization of civil disobediance and protest as a “Western model.”

Notwithstanding these nitpicks, Michael’s larger observation about Paris being the Beirut of Europe is well-taken.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:19 pm 100. thibaud:

There is no hope without first law and order. The rioters must be suppressed

Could not agree more. As do the rioters’ own parents, not to mention the imams. (Note that the failure of the kids to heed the imams’ call for an end to the torchings is yet more evidence of how little Islamist influence there is here.)

As I’ve said again and again, Sarko’s fault in my view was in talking tough while failing to brandish a big stick. A big-mouthed version of LA’s panicky, AWOL police chief, Darryl Gates.

But after heads are bashed and hundreds are locked up, the French will have to confront honestly the fact that deep-rooted, pervasive racism– not “multiculturalism”, which the French have never embraced and which is not at work in the steamroller, secularized, whites-first culture of La Republique– is the albatross around Marianne’s neck.

Again, the US is a truly multicultural society. We’re the ones who welcome religious dissidents, religious difference, even religious weirdoes (forget Travolta and Tom Cruise; imagine how the Mormons would fare in France or Germany….). It works here because the state attracts strivers (with tons of economic opportunity) and repels resenters (by providing only scanty welfare benefits, and for a very short period) and then, on condition that the laws are obeyed and basic assimilation occurs, leaves the religious minorities alone to raise their families, launch their businesses and pursue happiness.

If you think that muslim immigrants can’t or have not hewn to this model (as those hated Irish Catholics, and hasidic jews, and chaldeans and sikhs and quakers and mormons etc did), then I suggest you visit Milwaukee or Columbus OH and spend some time with the thriving Somali muslim immigrant community. I’m told there are now some 30,000 Somali muslims in Columbus, working hard, succeeding, become dually-proud hyphenated Americans the way my grandfathers did.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:19 pm 101. truepeers:

No it’s not proof enough for me Thibaud. In a young man’s idea of intellectual sophistication, caling Jews brothers in the context of video of the Nazis is just a way of saying we are victims too. And everyone knows who the new Nazis are today. But since it’s the Zionists, why are so many French Jews presently scared to death and leaving the country? It’s really gotta suck to leave Paris for six months of snow and ice in Quebec.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on the French banlieues, but I know something about how to think of historical causation and I am a little amused at anyone who is sure he knows what causes a riot. I will be posting an essay on these questions much later tonight at Yargb: http://yargb.blogspot.com/

Please come tomorrow and comment on that. And I’d still like your opinion on my links. Just anecdotal? Sure. And of course there is a lot of racism in France. Still, how can you presume to delineate specific or essential causes from the infinitely complex dynamic that is an event like this? It’s not really about causes anyway; it’s about what names we put on the event after it has already begun. This is pure politics, not sociology. In other words, justifications follow violent events, not vice versa. So admit as much and don’t convince yourself that “rolling race riots cum devil’s party” is somehow a better justification of causation than countless other possible and believable names. Ultimately it is the winners who get to write history and settle on the correct name. At least it was that way until postmodernism made being a victim a much desired status. And now it is the losers, at least those winners posing as losers, who write history. Maybe what is at the root of all this is our wider inability, whether we are in ghettos or in luxury apartments, to respect and emulate success. Everyone is drifting and I’m not going to fight to prove I have the right grasp of current victimology. I just want the French to be leaders again.

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:33 pm 102. thibaud:

Luther,

I’d be interested as to when are you going to put forth your plan for the real issues that face France? The problem you are not facing, as I see it, is the fact that many, if not most, of these ‘poor, downtrodden, alienated, and forgotten youth’ have absolutely no interest in participating in the world as we know it. What enticement would you offer them next? How much more will you accede to them? Until you have nothing left to give? Must their nihilist anarchy be the measure by which we live?

No. Zero tolerance is the right way to go as regards any kind of violence, and torching of property as well. At the same time– and y’all fail to note that Sarkozy is famous for this good-cop approach as well– France needs to get serious, and show it, about inclusion of people who are not white in the mainstream of French life. The easy part is to eliminate the absurd, employment-inhibiting restrictions on small employers that force hundreds of thousands of young French workers (of all colors) to London and elsewhere in search of work. Perhaps also pass enterprise zone legislation, maybe build more humane housing in place of the worst Cabrini Green-style projects.

The hard part is to pass and enforce serious anti-discrimination laws. Also, to eat a little, more like a lot of, humble pie and send top officials to the US to learn how it is we successfully attract religious minority strivers and welcome real religious diversity– including muslims from Somalia (in Milwaukee and Columbus), Iraq (in Dearborn), and Bosnia (in St Louis IIRC)– give them opportunities and then get the f— out of the way.

Sarkozy’s approach has been to create a “muslim parliament” that would co-opt the Islamic leadership. This is a mild version of the old, disastrous Mussolini/corporatist approach under which the state organizes society by keeping large groups– unions, private industry sectors, church groups etc– on a tight leash while providing privileges to the good poodles who agree to wear that leash and serve as leaders of the corporatist, state-supervised organizations. Sort of like the Pharisees under the Romans, maybe (no biblical scholar here).

I’d propose a different approach: respect people. Talk to them as equals. Listen to them. Understand their concerns (you’d be surprised at what those might be). Sarko seems to be doing this– good for him, there’s hope for him yet (though none for his scheming, self-regarding, vain-in-every-sense-of-the-word popinjay rival Villepin).

Lastly, when my business launches and then expands to France, I will do my damndest to find and hire as many hardworking, ambitious, striving young immigrants as I possibly can. Every entrepreneur knows that talented and ambitious immigrants make the best start-up employees

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:41 pm 103. JK Ribera:

“Note that the failure of the kids to heed the imams’ call for an end to the torchings is yet more evidence of how little Islamist influence there is here.”

Really? According to all I have read, the imams who are calling for peace and issuing fatwas against the violence are of the state-supported official sort – certainly not “Islamists.”

Nov 7, 2005 - 8:48 pm 104. thibaud:

Truepeers,

My analysis proceeds partly by elimination. Try applying some simple hypotheticals. We have indeed seen plenty of Islamist-influenced anti-jewish violence from arab French youth in recent years. Jews were attacked on the streets, multiple synagogues and jewish establishments were firebombed or shot at, and cemeteries were vandalized. Hundreds of incidents of vilence directed at jews; hardly any burnings of cars in arab or african neighborhoods. So we know what an Islamist-inspired French “uprising” looks like.

Now look at these events. We have literally thousands of car burnings, and a grand total of one anti-jewish attack. Obviously, the people perpetrating these events ascribe huge importance, or take huge pleasure in (or both), burning their neighbors’ cars. They just as obviously see little value ion attacking jews and jewish establishments. So whatever else you wish to conclude, it is incontrovertible that, in the old Sesame Street parlance, this (new) thing is not like the (previous) others.

Now consider the possibility that it’s a new kind of Islamist-inspired uprising– a “qualitatively different phase” in thelong-running, long-simmering (as one poster put it) Islamist subversion of France. But if we can’t discern the hand of Islamism in the targets selected (omitting the possibility that a passage from the Koran proscribes immolation for 20 year-old Peugeots), then where is it to be found?

In the leadership? Unlike Danny “The Red” Cohn-Bendit in Paris in May 1968, no such leader has emerged, let alone an Al Sadr type of imam.

In the slogans? The Bolsheviks transformed the generic peasant demands for “Peace Bread and Land” into a worker-focused “All Power to the [communist-dominated Petrograd] Soviet!” Where is there any demand for any element of the Islamist agenda?

Lastly, we’re left with the argument that this is being, or rather inevitably will be, exploited by the Islamists. Then why is it that the imams are all condemning the violence? Why are the parents– remember, these are the first-generation immigrants who are much closer to the african and arab homelands than are their kids– preparing to march against the rioters?

Given the parents’ reaction so far, if there were some hooded, chain-wearing Mahdi to mysteriously arise here, I have no doubt his mother would emerge a la Brian’s mum and wag her finger at him from the 27th floor, telling all and sundry that “‘e’s not the Messiah, ‘e’s a very naughty boy!!”

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:02 pm 105. thibaud:

I meant, “C’est un tres mechant garcon!!”

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:04 pm 106. chuck:

thibauld,

Then why is it that the imams are all condemning the violence?

And yesterday you pointed to the fact that the rioters stoned the Imams to prove the same point. There are official “French” Imams blessed and coopted by the French government. I expect they command little respect on the street and may have been the ones stoned. I don’t think “the” Imams is precise enough to draw conclusions from. Is it all, some, or a few? How about the guys on talk radio? How about websites? What about someone holding meetings in a backroom? Sunni Islam does not have an official hierarchy like the Shia or Catholics or even official Imams. If one were inclined to conspiracy theories, one could propose that near term goals had been met. So on and so forth.

I don’t think anyone really knows what is going on at this moment. But tomorrow and next week will start to show some of the consequences.

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:48 pm 107. zefal:

Chirac started out as a communist party member then switched to socialist party then switched again to the Conservative party so he could run against mitterand in the 80’s. Think michael bloomberg in NYC as an example.

It’s funny how the left are fleeing chirac in his time of need when they loved him so much for being saddam’s lackey. So much for loyalty.

Nov 7, 2005 - 9:55 pm 108. thibaud:

Chuck,

Your forbearnace is admirable but really, there’s no logic behind the supposition that Islam could, someday will, wish-it-may-I-wish-it-might, be behind this 11-day Grand Torch Auto tournament. If this were at all like the other little orgies of Islamist violence we saw in previous years (2000 and 2003 IIRC), we would have seen, at a minimum, scores of attacks on jews. Think about it: you have hundreds of kids participating in over a dozen cities across France. At least one attack per day per city on a jewish target would tally over ahundred attacks. Instead we have one attack on one synagogue. Really, the notion that this is islamist in nature is just ridiculous. Sorry to be blunt, but there’s no logic to it.

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:11 pm 109. chuck:

thibaud,

Why attack jews when there are so many French vehicles handy. Is attacking Jews the definition of Islamism? How about GIA and tens of thousands of dead Algerians. How about machine gunned Egyptians. What about Iraqis? The Taliban executing Afghanis? Phillipinos? Hindus? Buddhists? Christians? Americans? Bin Laden didn’t speak of Israel until late in the game. The islamists are interested in the umma, the Muslim community, in having their own space, their own law. Your bizarre litmus shows a profound ignorance of Islamism. It calls into question your ability to comment on it in any capacity. Your arguments have become mere sophistry and far less entertaining than the riots themselves.

Nov 7, 2005 - 10:49 pm 110. klrfz1:

thibaud

“… that there is not a single african among the senior ranks of the major French political parties, or among the ranks of VP-level and above executives among French multinationals, or among the intellectual or media elite. “

I want you to abandon this argument as an indication of French racism. The same thing could be said about the Democratic Party in America. There are no African-Americans in leadership positions in the Democratic Party. Do you believe the Democratic Party is racist? Of course not.

“The easy part is to eliminate the absurd, employment-inhibiting restrictions on small employers that force hundreds of thousands of young French workers (of all colors) to London and elsewhere in search of work.”

These laws were not written with intent to racially discriminate. Aren’t these laws intended to protect the workers from exploitation? Aren’t these laws part of the cradle to the grave security France promises all of it’s citizens? I don’t think they will be easy to change. Not easy at all.

What if France is not racist? Couldn’t the discrimination you see be based on the culture instead of the race of the African immigrants? I don’t normally defend France but I have never heard of much racial bias there. I have read they are very much in love with their own culture, though.

I wish you well with your business expansion. May you be so successful that CNN could charge you with making obscene profits.

P.S. It’s voting day. I want you slackers to get out there and vote. I bet the lines will be short and no IEDs either.

Nov 8, 2005 - 2:51 am 111. HA:

klrfz1,

Do you believe the Democratic Party is racist? Of course not.

The Democratic Party is absolutely racist. They’re agenda is entirely built around the concept that race and gender are the single determinant of thought. And if you are black and don’t think like ALL OTHER BLACKS, you are a traitor to your race. If you are a woman and don’t think like GLORIA STEINEM, you are a traitor to your gender.

Minorities and women who think independently and have their own opinions that are at odds with the dictates of the Democratic elite are denied their very identity and demonized mercilessly. What could be MORE racist than to build an agenda based on the concept that race DETERMINES thought? This is indeed racism in its purest, most distilled essence.

Nov 8, 2005 - 3:52 am 112. thibaud:

Couldn’t the discrimination you see be based on the culture instead of the race of the African immigrants?

Again, these kids are second- and third-generation immigrants. They don’t evince any affiliation with north african or sub-saharan “culture.” Even when they get university degrees, their unemployment rate is more than 5 times that of their white peers (26% vs 5%).

Nov 8, 2005 - 5:57 am 113. klrfz1:

But neither do they have a strong affiliation with French culture. I am saying the French are biased against all other cultures, all non-French cultures. Is the non-assimilation of these immigrants into French culture due solely to racism or were there other factors at work? I don’t know but you haven’t yet convinced me that the explaination is that France is so racist either.

Nov 8, 2005 - 6:38 am 114. thibaud:

I somehow doubt that university graduates are

“non-assimilated.” If racism were not at the core of this, then african university grads would not be 5 times as likely to be unemployed as their white peers. Twice as likely, maybe, if the africans have signficantly inferior degrees or tend toward professions with high unemployment rates.

However, a disparity of 5x is too great to attribute to those factors, and in any case it doesn’t make sense to suggest that people from working class backgrounds, many of whose parents did not attend college at all, would deliberately select undergraduate concentrations such as art history, literary studies etc that have a much higher unemployment rate than “practical” majors. The fact that one never sees africans in senior ranks of French firms lends still more support to my thesis that there is widespread racial discrimination in hiring.

Nov 8, 2005 - 7:21 am 115. chuck:

thibaud,

Again, these kids are second- and third-generation immigrants. They don’t evince any affiliation with north african or sub-saharan “culture.”

I don’t think this applies. North Africa isn’t the incubator where new islamist ideas are developing, Europe is. Something new is in the offing and North Africa and the Mideast isn’t where the action is.

Nov 8, 2005 - 7:36 am 116. Michael_B:

I’ve always agreed with about 75% of what you’ve been indicating thibaud, but agree with klrfz1 moreso. Questions remain and both sides in the debate (intifada vs. “merely” riots) are coming to conclusions which are not at all conclusive. This is especially so given that it is the mid-term to longer-term implications of the conditions in France and Europe more generally (demographics, socio-economic, socio-religious, etc.) which are more important than what occurs in the short term.

For example the story of Khaled Kelkal, while anecdotal, remains instructive; capable, but unwilling. It is merely about the potential for “inferior degrees,” or economically less viable professions, which you rightly mention, the individual/internal factors such as the willingness and desire to “assimilate,” along with the reasons for that lack of willingness and desire, are far more difficult to gauge and virtually impossible to quantify. That at least some of that internalized or self-motivated disaffection originates from Muslim and/or more militant Islamicist factors is clear enough.

Nov 8, 2005 - 7:38 am 117. Michael_B:

“It is merely about …” should read “It is not merely about …”

Nov 8, 2005 - 7:41 am 118. dougf:

As I’ve said again and again, Sarko’s fault in my view was in talking tough while failing to brandish a big stick..–Thibaud

Excellent observation.

If you are going to annoy people by the use of ‘tough’ language, then to follow that up by a lack of ‘tough’ measures, gets you both hated AND despised.

You can live with being hated, but you can’t live with being despised. Not only is the STATE hated because, in part, it is threatening the status-quo of ‘gangland’ in Paris, but it is despised because it seemingly does not have the WILL to effectively follow through.

Nov 8, 2005 - 7:45 am 119. Luther McLeod:

“respect people. Talk to them as equals. Listen to them. Understand their concerns (you’d be surprised at what those might be).”

thibaud

IMHO, you are asking a lot from human nature. Your statement above is true, of course. But for your process to succeed requires a willingness from both parties to arrive at a common/shared result. As I asked above, what outcomes can be expected when only one side of the discussion is willing to compromise, to seek accommodation? What happens when the other side has no desire to assimilate or fit into the the existing order? What then?

You cite the success of larger immigrant groups in the US, and that surely has occurred. But I ask, what would the situation be in this country, if in the last 30 years, fully ten percent of our population had been admitted from a particular immigrant group. An immigrant group that did not share the ground of individual freedom and, more importantly, individual responsibility that the civilized world requires. My point is that we would surely be experiencing problems with our ‘usual’ melting pot system.

I think France’s colonial ‘guilt’ has led them to some very unwise decisions. I will agree that racism could likely be a part of the problem. But IMO the larger problem was and is allowing such a large influx of immigrants, from such a disparate cultural group. It was/is just too much, too quickly. The long term solutions required will be several orders of complexity above laws, jobs and empathizing with the angst of youth.

Nov 8, 2005 - 9:26 am 120. Bostonian:

A funny contradiction occurred to me just recently (forgive me if this is an old observation).

The general position of the Left on such matters is that where people are angry, it’s because there is some kind of injustice. Hence bumperstickers that say, “Want peace? Work for justice” and so on.

This line of argument assumes that all people perceive justice/injustice in nearly the same way. That is, if some minority is angry about an injustice, that injustice is recognizable to the majority. There’s a common sense of right and wrong shared by all people–otherwise this argument simply would not work.

YET when neo-conservatives like us state our belief that all people would prefer to choose their own governments–that is regarded as some kind of theological position, an astonishing claim to make about human nature. Not everyone values the same things, we are told.

***

I think the Left has it exactly backwards. The common thing is the animal desire for personal freedom. Given the chance to vote (a real vote, Chavez), people turn out en masse, every time.

On the other hand, ideas about justice seem more relative. For example, see how many Arabs feel extremely *wronged* when receiving or even perceiving an insult.

Nov 8, 2005 - 10:36 am 121. thibaud:

I ask, what would the situation be in this country, if in the last 30 years, fully ten percent of our population had been admitted from a particular immigrant group

It would be what the US had ca 1920, when IIUC well over 10% of the population was not just foreign-born but also adherents of alien, supposedly “un-American”, non-Protestant religious faiths. Which is to say, turbulent but also economically dynamic and culturally vibrant, the most vibrant and dynamic society in the advanced world.

I think you’re getting hung up on an image of France’s africans as Islamists who reject modern, western life. I believe this does not describe more than a small, probably very tiny, percentage of France’s africans. The majority of French africans, both young and old, are far more influenced by western (especially American) pop culture than by Islam. As shown by their love of hip-hop or rap or whatever you want to call it. And, as with the cultural innovations created in the first decades of the 20c by America’s own Great Unwashed minority immigrants, namely the east european jews who gave us Tin Pan Alley, then Broadway, then Hollywood and so much more, I believe that France’s africans have a great deal to contribute to the regeneration of France and French cultural life.

Plenty of noise and vulgarity and junk among that contribution, sure. But you could have said the same about the east European jews’ Hollywood. Show people some respect, give them economic opportunities, and let their natural talents flourish. I do not believe that these projects, housing a majority of a population group that’s ca 6 million strong, do not contain many thousands of supremely intelligent and talented individuals who would soar if given the chance.

Nov 8, 2005 - 10:49 am 122. thibaud:

The big p[roblem for France’s immigrant groups is hte exact same peoblem that working class people from across the western world are facing: the end of the unskilled labor shortage due to the disappearance of many such positions (stevedores, etc) as technology replaces them and the decline of wesern countries’ industrial manufacturing base in the face of Asian and other global competitors. This is just as much a problem for the working class of Baltimore and Oakland and Detroit as it is for the working class, black and white, of Paris and Lille and Bremen and Rotterdam.

The problem for France is that their industrial model favors, or I should say, purchases labor peace from, older unionized workers at the expense of the young, whose unemployment rates remain at Depression-levels across not just France but Germany and Spain as well. Screw the kids; pamper the labor aristocrats. The kids– black and white, mind you– aren’t willing to take it anymore, but no one gives a f— about young voters in any country. They never turn out in numbers anywhere near the turnout shown by older voters.

Nov 8, 2005 - 10:58 am 123. PeterUK:

Speaking of bumper stickers,the rioters seem to be torching only “white” owned cars http://www.nysun.com/article/22671?access=759097

Nov 8, 2005 - 11:12 am 124. jerry:

Thibaud:

You continue to beat the drum for the “root causes” meme despite the growning body of evidence that rioters are chanting Allah Akbar, selectively burning cars that appear to be owned by non-Muslims and sparing those that have indications of Muslim ownership. Torching of an occasional church (probably something that you approve of.) and sparing Mosques. But you know what the say…

Foolish consistancy is the mark of small minds…

Nov 8, 2005 - 11:15 am 125. chuck:

Jerry,

selectively burning cars that appear to be owned by non-Muslims and sparing those that have indications of Muslim ownership. Torching of an occasional church (probably something that you approve of.) and sparing Mosques.

I would be careful about taking these as truth. Some strike me as war rumors of the sort that almost always arise in these situations. who has been making inventory of the cars? Remember the stories about Germans bayonetting babies in Belgium at the start of WWI? Ok, I’m not that old either, but I think these reports need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Nov 8, 2005 - 11:47 am 126. thibaud:

Here come da Katrina-mongers.

As I say, the right-wing anti-Islamist blogosphere is doing to this story what the anti-Bush media did to the Katrina story. Namely, desperately seeking evidence to superimpose a predetermined meme of their choosing (”tHe InTIfaDA!!! bArBARiAnS aT THe gATeS Of vIeNNa!!!”) on story that’s manifestly about something else.

Nov 8, 2005 - 12:01 pm 127. jerry:

and Thibaud is desperate to exonerate Islam because it doesn’t fit into his peace and justice meme.

Nov 8, 2005 - 12:17 pm 128. Luther McLeod:

I don’t buy it thibaud. I can’t 100% vouch for the source…http://www.migrationinformation.org/GlobalData/charts/final.fb.shtml

but it would seem that the highest percentage of immigrants vs. total US population was about 15 percent around 1905. Of that immigrant population approximately 80 percent were from Western and Northern Europe. By 1920 the percentage was down a point or two from peak and continued to decline until 1970. It now matches the 1905 level.

Not at all the situation in France as I described above. In your optimistic exuberance, I think you are avoiding my question and point. And besides, I am talking current numbers, which would mean 30 million immigrants, a million a year for the last thirty years, all of a particular group, all with decidedly different ideas on goals and aspirations. Our melting pot would be cherry red I think.

And no, “I think you’re getting hung up on an image of France’s africans as Islamists” I’m not. But from my readings in the last four years I think your figures and estimation of degree of influence by Islam could use some upward adjustment. Else why the ban on hijab?

Nov 8, 2005 - 1:07 pm 129. chuck:

Here is a collection of links on the “rioters are Islamist” theme.

Nov 8, 2005 - 2:38 pm 130. thibaud:

a million a year for the last thirty years, all of a particular group, all with decidedly different ideas on goals and aspirations

Get your facts straight. First, non-EU country immigration ranged from about 60,000 to 110,000 per year, not “a million”, during the 1990s and the last five years. Second, as I’ve pointed out before, this is vastly lower than Britain’s annual non-EU country immigration dueing the same period, which ranged from 160,000 to 300,000 annually. Again, the point here is that France’s policy is far stricter than Britain’s, or for that matter almost any EU nation.

Second, only about 40% of the non-EU immigrants were from Africa, and about a third of these were not arab or berber (ie, were from sub-Saharan Africa). It’s simply bogus to argue that la belle France is being inundated by a colossal wave of muslim immigrants.

Third, most of these already had family members in France, which underscores my point that the big waves of immigation occurred more than a generation ago, during the 1950s and 1960s. The assimilation problem is less pressing than the economic problem. If these immigrants somehow had easy access to stable employment– as their grandparents and parents did when they arrived during the beginning of France’s postwar boom (known as les trente glorieuses, or the 30 years of “glorious” eonomic growth)– then the assimilation problem would be far more manageable.

In future, please consult my research assistant, Monsieur Google, before making claims about statistical data that can be easily verified.

peaked thirty years ago in France. Today, and for at least two decades, France has had one of the strictest immigration policies in the western world. So it’s wrong

Nov 8, 2005 - 8:12 pm 131. Luther McLeod:

thibaud

You completely misread my post and ignored my point. Which is fine. But for the record, my data and link (if you had looked) were for the US and were in rebuttal to your claim re the 1920’s above. I was making a hypothetical comparison of proportionality of immigrant groups between France and the US. Sixty million French, six million Africans/muslims, three hundred million Americans, thirty million Africans/muslims, in the last thirty years. As I said, our ‘melting pot’ would be cherry red.

Nov 9, 2005 - 5:24 am

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