It Began and it Ended. For now.

[Ratty Sr.]

Someone finally died from all of this.

I'm honestly sorry I laughed when I heard this. Can't say this is not France's fault, but a lot of innocent people are being hurt, and damn, not even I thought (hoped?) it would last for 13 days and keep getting worse.

Says a lot about effectiveness of the current French administration. Maybe decades of tranquility made them forget the lesson of 1968. I think it's time Chirac went De Gaulle on the protesters and threatened to unleash the army if they don't cut out the bullshit.

 

[John Uskglass]

Spotted on Andrew Sullivan

A Martian observing France dispassionately, without ideological preconceptions, would come to the conclusion that the French had accepted with equanimity a kind of social settlement in which all those with jobs would enjoy various legally sanctioned perks and protections, while those without jobs would remain unemployed forever, though they would be tossed enough state charity to keep body and cellphone together. And since there are many more employed people than unemployed people in France, this is a settlement that suits most people, who will vote for it forever. It is therefore politically unassailable, either by the left or the right, which explains the paralysis of the French state in the present impasse.

The only fly in the ointment (apart from the fact that the rest of the economies of the world won't leave the French economy in peace) is that the portion of the population whom the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, so tactlessly, but in the secret opinion of most Frenchmen so accurately, referred to as the "racaille" -- scum -- is not very happy with the settlement as it stands. It wants to be left alone to commit crimes uninterrupted by the police, as is its inalienable right...

The French left, ever vigilant on behalf of the downtrodden privileged, won't consider a reform of the labor market that might just help to integrate the racaille into French society. The French right, by contrast, wants to deal with the problem first by ignoring it -- for, as the South African whites used to say about the rioting Africans, they are only fouling their own nest -- and then, if the worst comes to the worst and the violence spills over to where the decent people live, by repressing it with force. Anyone who has seen members of the Compagnies Republicaines de Securité, the CRS, in the streets of Paris, even on a good day, will not doubt their willingness to obey orders with something approaching overenthusiasm. As one officer in the force reportedly put it, "The more difficult it is, the calmer we are."

If push were ever to come to shove, the trains to the townships could be turned off, assuming they were not wrecked first by the inhabitants themselves, and the roads to the center of Paris (and other towns and cities) could be blocked with a few armored cars or a couple of tanks. A state of emergency could be declared, after which the CRS could go about its business in all calmness and serenity. The left would squeal and protest a bit, but secretly be relieved that, thanks to the CRS, the labor laws protecting their voters did not have to be changed after all, with the consequent introduction of "savage liberalism" into France.

The current interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, is the first French politician to suggest some approach to the problem other than building more community centers made of concrete and named after great French poets. As a result, he is both hated and feared, and the rioters must hope that if they burn enough cars and kindergartens he will be forced to resign and thus lose his chance of winning the presidency and letting the CRS loose. This will enable "les jeunes" to return to the life they know and understand, that of criminality without interference by the state.

From NRO.

Says a lot about effectiveness of the current French administration. Maybe decades of tranquility made them forget the lesson of 1968. I think it's time Chirac went De Gaulle on the protesters and threatened to unleash the army if they don't cut out the bullshit.

Wow, shit. That's a surprise.

Chirac will never send in the army. Sarkozy might, but I am curious as to the vitality of his political life after some shitracking by the Dumbass wing of the French Left.

It will be fun to see the LeClerc in action though. That's a sucky tank. Should have just bought Leopards like we and the UK where going to originally.

 

[Brother None]

Someone finally died from all of this.

I'm honestly sorry I laughed when I heard this. Can't say this is not France's fault, but a lot of innocent people are being hurt, and damn, not even I thought (hoped?) it would last for 13 days and keep getting worse.

Ok, about time to put a stop to this nonsense. This is almost as bad as the 10,000 dead cries during New Orleans.

1) The man's death has not been proven to be related to the riots. It happened near the same time as the riots, but agressive youths exist everywhere at every time. He was not stuck in the middle of riots.

2) A lot of the areas included in the "riot counts" have only one or two cars damaged or burnt.

3) Many, many cars damaged or burnt right now are being reported to the authorities as a victim of riots. Not all of them are victims of riots

4) A lot of this damage is a result of political ineptitude rather than inherent social problems. This political ineptitude stems partially from Chirac's bad position and partially from the internal struggle between de Villepin and Sarkozy, which has halted a lot of effective actions.

I know it's nice to have your turn gloating after most of the world has been poking fun at the US for decades, but this isn't the endemical collapse of the welfare state, nor is this "Paris Burns" or whatever idiotic axioms have been attached to it.

Is this a problem? Yes. Will it all turn out to be far less severe by the end than it's looking now? Yes.

This is another spot of trouble in the continuing degradation of the European welfare state and multicultural society as it scrambles about looking for alternative means of surviving. It's tough and it sucks, but it's not the end of Europe.

 

[John Uskglass]

This is another spot of trouble in the continuing degradation of the European welfare state and multicultural society as it scrambles about looking for alternative means of surviving. It's tough and it sucks, but it's not the end of Europe.

It might not be. But I expect that it is. Welfare states are like addictions to heroin: hard to kick but incredibly self destructive.

And to be honest, I'm not thrilled by the Euro response to the situation so far. I seriously doubt it will get better before it gets much, much worse.

 

[brandons1313]

One man killed
5,873 cars torched
1,500 people arrested
17 people sentenced
120 police and firefighters injured
Figures as of 8 November

I'm surprised only 1 person had died so far.

 

[welsh]

So am I. Only one person dead after two weeks of riots suggests that for all the social inequality, the French are still a fairly peaceful bunch- even when they are burning cars.

 

[Brother None]

Brandon, welsh, I just said that the death of this man, who lived in a neighbourhood that is always violent anyways, has not yet been found to be related to the riots. PAY ATTENTION.

John; you're being a fool. Again, I know it's nice to have something to gloat about and I know you've been waiting for the Islamo-European Union to pan out, but that's all a far shot away from realism.

If you're going to wait for the end of Europe based on a few riots, you might as well expect the end of America based on a single terrorist attack. Foolish.

Also, you're now heading for the rather inhumane facet of political rivalry, where people gloat over deaths caused by the opposing political side and hope it will be getting worse. That's as disgusting as lefties celebrating every American death in Iraq. Stop it.

Last, "Euro response"? The European Union is not involved in law-keeping efforts and is not involved in these riots in any way. There IS no Euro response, there is a French response. I thought I had finally stomped the incessant and annoying habit to think of Europe as one nation out of you. Sheesh.

 

[Ratty Sr.]

Brandon, welsh, I just said that the death of this man, who lived in a neighbourhood that is always violent anyways, has not yet been found to be related to the riots. PAY ATTENTION.

I heard on radio that the man was killed while trying to prevent a group of hooligans from setting his car on fire. Sounds pretty related to riots if you ask me.

 

[Brother None]

I heard on radio that the man was killed while trying to prevent a group of hooligans from setting his car on fire. Sounds pretty related to riots if you ask me.

You heard wrong.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

Must applaud the Daily Shows coverage:

For once a country implodes in an orgy of hatred and violence, and they can't pin it on us.

 

[Sander]

I heard on radio that the man was killed while trying to prevent a group of hooligans from setting his car on fire. Sounds pretty related to riots if you ask me.

The man was beaten into a coma when trying to put out a fire in a trashcan.

Look here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4413250.stm

 

[brandons1313]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/11/07/europe.fears.ap/index.html

ROME, Italy (AP) -- The riots spreading across France have exposed the anger, disillusionment and racial tensions simmering in Paris' poor, immigrant neighborhoods. Europeans said Monday they were bracing for copycat violence in impoverished quarters of their own big cities.

Cars were set ablaze outside Brussels' main train station and in a working-class district of Berlin -- but officials in Belgium and Germany sought Monday to play down the risk of the kind of violence that France has experienced since October 27.

Britain saw rioting last month in the central England city of Birmingham, sparked by racial tension between members of the Afro-Caribbean and South Asian communities over the alleged rape of a 14-year-old black girl by an Asian man.

Across the continent, officials acknowledged that poverty and the poor integration of Europe's growing immigrant populations may be feeding disillusionment in the cities' poorer quarters.

European leaders said it was time to look closely at immigration and integration policies.

"There are terrible living conditions and unhappiness -- (even) where everybody is Italian," said Romano Prodi, the center-left's candidate to oppose Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi in elections next spring. Poverty, unemployment and urban decay could spark violence in Italy as well, he said in a newspaper interview.

Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, a key Berlusconi ally, shot back that Prodi's remarks caused unnecessary alarm.

And Wolfgang Schaeuble, a conservative tapped as Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel's interior minister, told the Bild daily newspaper that Germany cannot be compared to France and its sprawling, decrepit housing projects.

"The conditions in France are different from the ones we have," Schaeuble said. "We don't have these gigantic high-rise projects that they have on the edges of French cities."

Schaeuble cautioned, however, that "we have to improve integration, particularly of young people. That means above all that they must master the German language."

An immigration law that took effect in January aims to integrate newcomers to Germany, making German-language and civics courses obligatory for them.

Others, however, saw the rioting in low-income Paris suburbs as evidence that European immigration policies don't work.

Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria's rightist, xenophobic Freedom Party, called on Austrian leaders to stop immigration and implement integration measures that would prevent "French conditions" from emerging in his country.

Domenico De Masi, a sociologist at Rome's La Sapienza university, said growing income differences make it likely that violence will reach Italian cities as well.

"All the elements are there. It's easier to explain why it should happen instead of why it doesn't happen," he said.

Russian Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov said Monday that Russia -- coping with its own rising racial tension -- could see similar rioting.

"I am convinced that something like what we are now seeing in France could happen here, but on an even greater scale and with even more dramatic consequences," Zyuganov said, according to Interfax.

"When the makeup of the population changes so fundamentally during a short period of time, its new members cannot adapt overnight."

The Swedish tabloid Expressen said in an editorial that the trouble in Paris is of an "all-European relevance."

"We have difficulties accepting that people come to us from far away," the tabloid said. "It is like the humble staff at a luxury hotel would suddenly take up quarters with their richest habituÄes. They should know their places, a dark undercurrent in the collective European consciousness says."

The French unrest began after the deaths of two teenagers of north African descent. They were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police in a power station, apparently thinking they were being chased.

The violence since has fanned into a nationwide challenge of French authority from youths, including young Arabs and Africans -- many of them European-born -- riled by high unemployment and discrimination.

Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said France had ignored Ankara's calls for more tolerance, citing France's ban on head scarves in public schools.

"We've always told our friends in Europe that they should not lead to a clash of civilizations in order to prevent such incidents," daily Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as saying during a visit Sunday to Germany.

"We should work for an alliance between civilizations. There is a great duty which falls on the Christian and Muslim world. Europe should have evaluated this," Erdogan said. "We said it. But France did not take it into account. It did not listen to us."

Abdelkarim Carrasco, a leader of Spain's estimated 1 million-member Muslim community, said he does not envision the same kind of violence in his country because the proportion of poor North African Muslims is much smaller.

But he said the French experience posed a key test for all of Europe.

"Either Europe develops and supports the idea of a mixed culture, or Europe has no future," he said. "Europe has to learn from what the United States has done: It is a country that has taken in people from all over the world."

 

[John Uskglass]

Also, you're now heading for the rather inhumane facet of political rivalry, where people gloat over deaths caused by the opposing political side and hope it will be getting worse. That's as disgusting as lefties celebrating every American death in Iraq. Stop it.

What was it Updike said about Humorists? "The problem is that neither they nor the audiance know when they are being serious?"

I was joking at the beggining, and I apologized for that here:

I'm honestly sorry I laughed when I heard this. Can't say this is not France's fault, but a lot of innocent people are being hurt, and damn, not even I thought (hoped?) it would last for 13 days and keep getting worse.

I joked about Europe degrading into another massive Religious war (which I still think is possible, and this has not deterred me), but a part of me saw it as punishment for what Europe has done to itself and the world.

I was a jerk and an idiot and I'm sorry. Real people are hurting, and millions are repressed by a vile system.

I still think that in the long term Westrope will prove itself incapable of dealing with the problems that brought on this Riot, but I'm sorry I joked about it. You might not take it from my online persona, but this kind of shit actually gets me angry in a way that only one other subject can. I actually value human life and dignity a lot. And I sold that to be a troll.

If you're going to wait for the end of Europe based on a few riots, you might as well expect the end of America based on a single terrorist attack. Foolish.

Single incidents are more often proof of a social sickness rather then an instantaneous collapse.

Last, "Euro response"? The European Union is not involved in law-keeping efforts and is not involved in these riots in any way. There IS no Euro response, there is a French response. I thought I had finally stomped the incessant and annoying habit to think of Europe as one nation out of you. Sheesh.

I'm generalizing, and I'm wrong in doing that. Denmark has been approaching the issue carefully, and France has been almost a succes story in terms of birth rate for whatever reason.

But by Euro I mean the response of Spain (ELECT SOCIALISTS), Germany (ELECT SPD DIE CDP) and France (WE NEED TO GIVE THEM MORE MONEY, MAKE BETTER HOUSING PROJECTS).

I think there are a lot of sane, intellegent people who recognize the fact that this is a serious problem in the EU's near future, but to be honest, as I have stated many times, I doubt that these people will be able to bring in 'Savage Liberalism' and save themselves.

 

[Jebus]

Cars were set ablaze outside Brussels' main train station and in a working-class district of Berlin -- but officials in Belgium and Germany sought Monday to play down the risk of the kind of violence that France has experienced since October 27.

Of course they are - we're talking about only four cars here.

Sensationalist idiots.

 

[welsh]

It's odd how the Europeans are trying to minimalize this.

Didn't they see this coming?
Or perhaps they don't like showing their dirty laundry?

More on this from Slate-

The French Eat Their Young
Paris needs less red tape and a lot more jobs.
By Elisabeth Eaves
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005, at 3:08 PM ET

In France, an economic system that eats its young

PARIS—In the two weeks of nightly rioting around France, some American pundits see an incipient religious war, while France's favorite celebrity philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy, sees a "suicidal, unprecedented tarantella."

In fact, those looking for root causes, beyond the death-by-electrocution of two teenagers fleeing the police, would do better to focus on a more mundane concern, namely employment.

This may come as a disappointment to those who await the "clash of civilizations" as ardently as doomsday cultists await the apocalypse. But the fact that many of the rioters are from Muslim families is about as relevant as the fact that many of 1992's Los Angeles rioters had Baptist grannies.

Hormonal, alienated kids need good reasons not to set cars on fire, such as opportunities to lose. They have few: Among the young, immigrant men who live in satellite slums, unemployment reaches 40 percent.

While that's considerably higher than the still-dismal figure of 10 percent nationwide, there's more to this discrepancy than just racism and isolation. Among all twentysomethings, unemployment is a whopping 20 percent. And many of the jobs that do exist are sinecures, because French labor laws make it difficult and expensive to fire workers.

As a result, it's not just Arab and African boys who see little point in trying. The book Bonjour Paresse, by a young, white Parisian woman, was a runaway best seller last year. The title means "Hello Laziness" (it was published in the States as Bonjour, Laziness: Jumping Off the Corporate Ladder), and it's one long argument in favor of slacking off at work. Author Corinne Maier became an icon to fellow cubicle-dwellers, who recognized a principled point behind her tongue-in-cheek exhortations to "actively disengage" and "spread gangrene from within": The book is a protest against an ossified corporate culture in which people try to look busy while waiting out their jobs-for-life. Needless to say, Maier's company could not fire her even after she publicly detailed her total refusal to make an effort at work.

The French riots should be a wake-up call, but not for pouring billions of euros into the banlieues, as measures announced today by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin would do. A visionary leader would seize the chance to dismantle an economic system that is eating its young.

An obvious place to start would be to overturn labor laws that strangle private enterprise. The minimum wage is so high that it often exceeds the potential productivity gains of hiring a new worker, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's 2005 Economic Survey of France. In other words, even if a prospective employee would increase your company's income by only, say, 1,000 euros a month, you would have to pay him more than that. (The minimum wage is 1,197 euros a month. Spread over four 35-hour weeks, that works out to 8.55 euros, or $10, an hour.)

Enterprise is hampered in other ways too. Companies that can't fire people are ultracautious about hiring. A complicated tax structure means that even the smallest firms must devote resources to tax accounting. Excessive licensing requirements in many professions keep out competition.

Red tape doesn't just hamstring economic growth. It also lends itself to racist implementation. The more bureaucratic gatekeepers job-seekers have to appease, the more likely it is that someone will sooner or later reject Mohammed in favor of Pierre. While French politicians lament the harshness of capitalism, the so-called Anglo-Saxon model is what allows American immigrant families to leap from corner grocery store to the Ivy League in a single generation.

Removing the government's stranglehold on the economy, though, would eventually threaten France's elaborate social welfare system, which is not so much a safety net as a downy mattress complete with breakfast in bed. The portion of the French electorate that benefits from guaranteed short hours, six-week summer holidays, and early retirement has shown time and again that it is willing to vote against mathematics. These people would choose to keep paying themselves benefits until the ambitious have all left for London and the rioters have reached the Arc de Triomphe.

It's times like this that strong leaders need to step in and do unpopular things. Among his new measures, de Villepin announced tax breaks for businesses that locate in a "ZUS"—a "sensitive urban zone." That sounds like a good idea, but without fundamental labor reform, I doubt it will go far enough.

Mostly, de Villepin has announced things that will cost the government lots of money. Among the more curious is a promise that every ZUS inhabitant under 25 will undergo a personal "in-depth interview" at an employment agency, in which a "specific solution," such as an internship or training program, will be proposed. Bonjour Paresse author Maier, who holds degrees in economics and psychotherapy, is underemployed in a 20-hour-a-week job. Perhaps the state should hire her to work in a Clichy-sous-Bois employment center. I'd love to hear what she would tell her young charges about the future that awaits them, should they ever make it to the workforce.

The future is not entirely bleak. Traveling from the middle of Paris to the land beyond the périphérique, or ring road, has always presented stark differences. White people leave the train long before it arrives in all-minority burgs like St. Denis and Bobigny. But between calcified central Paris and the distant concrete towers, the city's truly multicultural arrondissements defy all attempts at ethnic categorization. On Rue du Faubourg du Temple, which divides the 10th and 11th wards, for example, Chinese, Sri Lankan, Arab, European, and Turkish shopkeepers have their businesses jammed up against one another. The neighborhood is pleasantly hectic and entrepreneurial, with buckets of cheap shoes and barking restaurateurs. It's an area where a Londoner or New Yorker could feel right at home.

Ironically, France has done a far better job than America of educating its underclass, thanks to a school system paid for with national rather than local funds. But the state has failed on employment, leaving students with skills and aspirations twisting in the wind. If the government would back away from its stranglehold on the economy, it wouldn't have to resort to barricades and curfews to keep the have-nots under control. Instead, they could get jobs, and their future would look less like a high rise slum and more like Rue du Faubourg du Temple.

 

[Brother None]

It's odd how the Europeans are trying to minimalize this.

We're trying to minimalize this in the same sense that Americans tried to minimalized New Orleans. Is our representation not directly related to relaty? Maybe so, but it serves to off-balance hostile international news, in this case American news or even local European news.

The problem, welsh, is that this isn't actually *huge*. It's a problem of some scale showing itself in a lesser scale. These riots in no way truly show the underbelly of European "integrated" civilization and a lot of us know this. A lot of "us", though, are grasping at this chance (desperately, perhaps) to prove to others and perhaps to ourselves that there is no problem.

Because honestly, if this is the only representative of the problem what kind of problem do we have, really? These riots are sizeable, but they're not huge. France is not falling apart, as demonstrated by most of its leaders chosing not to use the emergency act. It hasn't spread in any significant way to other European countries.

You must remember well the reaction to New Orleans. The shock and call for aid was only a thin cover for the grand national shrug of "that won't happen here" coupled with "it doesn't really matter". This isn't European nature, it's human nature.

PS: not also that France's economic situation is in fact a pretty distinct and unique situation stemming from it's post-WW II controlled economies.

 

[welsh]

Except, I don't think most sane Americans are trying to minimize New Orleans. That was a colossal fuck up and Bush's popularity rating is at all time lows. Now the Republicans are so fucked with ethnic issus that they put Rosa Parks decaying body in the Capital for a freaking week and put a medal on Mohammed Ali, as if that matters. And still people aren't buying it. But at the end of the day the Republicans are still not getting it-- they see it as a racial issue when its really about poverty.

But you are wrong to think "it won't happen here" mentality is in the works. Rather a lot of cities are rethinking not just disaster relief but how they deal with the poor. People are starting to wonder if all this corporate welfare is such a good thing and why entire populations are being left behind.

The thing is that at least Americans are responding to it. This shit's been coming down for awhile Kharn. Hell, we've talked about it here.

Ok, so maybe these riots are unique to France... but then you get Muslims killing a director in your neck of the woods, Muslims blowing up trains in London and Spain, and this is just the big news. It's adding up.

And it can't be all "hostile American/International news." And I'll agree- I appreciate hostile International of Foreign news when its pointing out stuff Americans are missing from their own media.

But yet it seems that Europeans like you are turning a blind eye to this.

Huge? Fuck Kharn, it's been going on for two weeks and its spreading. What does "huge" have to be?

The underbelly of European's "integrated" civilization? You know at least most Americans are aware that there are Black-White problems in the US . But Europeans are deciding that "there is no problem?"

Listen to this- "France is unique." Yeah... That's why there are no problems between Germans and Turks in Germany, right? This is why the Swiss are just leaping for joy for having more Muslim refugees in their country?

Maybe France's problem is partially because of its fucked up economy but maybe it's also because of its notions of "french identity" and the power of entrenched special interests over other, less political powerful but more numerous groups?

"No, there's no problem... it's just France..."
Yeah....

How many riots and how many cities do you need before Europe wakes up to its problems?

 

[Brother None]

Except, I don't think most sane Americans are trying to minimize New Orleans. That was a colossal fuck up and
Bush's popularity rating is at all time lows.

But Bush isn't the issue anymore than Chirac is the issue in France. Both fucked up in response to an emergency that showed the ugly, ethnically defined underbelly of their socieities.

In this context I don't care about the response to Bush or the fact that the people of NO weren't helped fast enough or that the New Orleans Saints are suffering under a lot of stress because of it and thus suck

But you are wrong to think "it won't happen here" mentality is in the works. Rather a lot of cities are rethinking not just disaster relief but how they deal with the poor. People are starting to wonder if all this corporate welfare is such a good thing and why entire populations are being left behind.

Perhaps, but the point still stands that New Orleans, like anything that happens to you panic-prone Americans, was originally inflated beyond comprehension (10,000 dead, remember that?), which meant that once the original shock was over a lot of people, esp. white richies, could shrug and just ignore the issue.

I'm sure something is happening, just like something is happening in France, and this reaction is a response to the direct emergency, but not to the greater problem.

Ok, so maybe these riots are unique to France... but then you get Muslims killing a director in your neck of the woods, Muslims blowing up trains in London and Spain, and this is just the big news. It's adding up.

No, it's not. You're mixing up two completely different things here and making a vital mistake that a lot of righties are making.

The terrorists in London, Spain and the Netherlands were all without fail highly-educated people of prosperous background. Many had studied, had jobs or lived well enough illegally. They did not strike out because of poverty or desperation, they struck because they're radical Islamists and that is their creed. In other words, they struck because they're religious nutjobs.

The riots in France are not ethnic or religious in their basic nature. That's to say, these people are in their situation partially because of their ethnicity and religion, but neither lie directly at the root of the problem. They're striking out because they're poor and they're poor because they and the French state haven't worked enough towards integration into society and the economy, which is partially caused by them being muslims and ethnically different. If you cut out the middle link here, the last link drops off and is no longer a problem.

See the difference?

Huge? Fuck Kharn, it's been going on for two weeks and its spreading. What does "huge" have to be?

Actually, it's been decreasing with leaps and bounds (25%-50% decrease in burned cars a day) since Wednesday. At this rate, barring further aggrivation, it'll soon be over.

The underbelly of European's "integrated" civilization? You know at least most Americans are aware that there are Black-White problems in the US . But Europeans are deciding that "there is no problem?"

I said "integrated" rather than integrated for a reason welsh.

And you failed to properly catch the tone of "A lot of (...) is no problem". Read it again.

Listen to this- "France is unique." Yeah... That's why there are no problems between Germans and Turks in Germany, right? This is why the Swiss are just leaping for joy for having more Muslim refugees in their country?

Yes, and Russia is having problems with muslim immigrants too. As is Australia. And many others.

Does being in one big EU force us to draw parralels without discrimination? Try to understand, please, that we're SEPERATE countries. One country's problems are not another country's problems. There are EU-wide institutions dealing with the issues, but they are mostly forced to conclude that each seperate country has failed to integrate its populace in different ways and is thus facing different issues and different solutions to the problems.

I'm glad there are no people in charge here that are like you in thinking there's one blanket problem with one blanket solution in Europe. That'd be fucked up. Comparing France to Germany or the Netherlands might work. Comparing it to Poland or England would be insane.

Maybe France's problem is partially because of its fucked up economy but maybe it's also because of its notions of "french identity" and the power of entrenched special interests over other, less political powerful but more numerous groups?

France. Is. Unique.

Example. No other country in Europe has a constitution that forces the government to consider every person as a French citizen, period. By its own law France is not allowed to make distinctions based on colour or creed, which is why France never managed to analyse the problems of the ghettos on an official level. Because officially, the people in the ghettos are Frenchmen (or illegals), no more, no less. This does not happen in any other country.

How many riots and how many cities do you need before Europe wakes up to its problems?

Europe woke up a long time ago. It's easy enough to sit at the other end of the ocean and sneer, but waking up is more than is necessary to solve the problem. We woke up and many of think they have a solution, but nobody knows what the right solution is, and people are poking about and trying to figure it out.

What did you expect? This is a problem that comes from three generations back. Did you expect Europe to clap its hands and make it go away? How long did it take the US to get as far in solving its blacks and hispanics problems as it is and honestly can you call the point you reached a shining example for others? I think not. Maybe the finger needs to be cleaned before pointing with it.

You will be allowed to gloat if more non-French European cities have riots soon. It is possible, but expecting it to happen just shows a glaring lack of knowledge of Europe.

 

[welsh]

How does anyone know unique until you compare it with everything else? Of course, if you've got problems you could always say- "yeah but in the US, things really suck...." America bashing is easy, but doesn't resolve your problems. But maybe it gives you peace of mind.

Sneer? Remember, I like the French.

Heads up, but merely saying "Oh look at America- you've got race problems for ever..." Yeah we know. So I guess this just means that both Europe and the US is in the same kind of shit.

Terrorists vs Protestors-
Most terrorists have historically been middle to upper class, educated. Most ghetto protestors have been poor and disenfranchised. But you seem to suggest that the muslim terrorist is just a nut job and the protestor/rioter has legitimate grievances. Are you so sure that the terrorist is just a nut, and that maybe, if you look a little closer, these terrorists might have some real gripes. But its easier to just say "this is the work of a nut" or "those protestors, but that's France."

The beauty of this is that the US and Europe is in similar shit. The question is how to deal with it. On that I agree. But based on your responses the general rule of thumb is minimalize it, whereas the Americans blow it out of proportion.

Which is the better solution?

3 paths to blended Europe - all flawed
By Craig S. Smith The New York Times
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2005


PARIS The images of wild gangs of young men silhouetted against the flames of burning cars came as an unwelcome reminder for France of its growing underclass just weeks after the French watched, in horrified fascination, the anarchy of New Orleans as Americans looted stores and defied the police after hurricane Katrina.

So far, while the damage to French property has been extensive - hundreds of cars and buses burned and dozens of businesses destroyed - and the violence has spread to troubled neighborhoods in many towns, there is no evidence that the unrest is coalescing into a broader political movement. Most of the rioters appear to be teenage boys bent more on making the news than on making a coherent political statement.

"It's a game of cowboys and Indians," said Olivier Roy, a French scholar of European Islam, adding that attacking the police and setting cars on fire "have become a local sport, a rite of passage."

But the fear is that a structural underclass is emerging - not only in France, but elsewhere in Europe as well - that could bring with it crime and religious fanaticism.

The French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned Thursday that France risked losing the integration battle in its immigrant neighborhoods to radical religious-based movements - shorthand for Islamic extremism.

So far, however, Roy said, "The Islamists aren't in the affair, because it would expose them to criticism and gain them nothing."

France and other European countries are paying the price of history. There are three basic models of integration in Europe, which has faced large-scale non-European immigration only in the era since World War II. Each of the three demonstrates flaws.

Germany and Austria pursued a policy, now largely discredited, of "guest workers." It was based on the idea that immigrants were temporary laborers who would eventually go home. But the guest workers did not go home and their European-born children have begun demanding citizenship and equal rights.

Germany has recently moved toward more integration: While it is still difficult to become a citizen, there has been a wave of naturalizations in recent years and children born in the country to foreign parents now receive citizenship at birth. Several hundred thousand Turkish Germans voted in the country's recent presidential elections.

Britain has followed a policy more like that of the United States, extending citizenship to newcomers and encouraging strong ethnic communities that help themselves and give immigrants a political voice in the larger society.

British immigrants arriving from Commonwealth countries in the 1950s and 1960s enjoyed immediate voting rights until Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher put an end to the practice in 1981. But the law created politically powerful immigrant communities early on that banded together for resources and fought for their rights.

France has also offered citizenship to its immigrants, but the process was slower. Also, many of the Algerians who arrived to work after their bitter war of independence against France a half century ago were reluctant to take up citizenship, even though they were making their lives in France. Not until naturalizations became more common, in the 1980s, have immigrants and their adult children begun to develop political power.

But France discourages anything that could divide the public; ghettoization is known to all French as a destructive force that afflicts the United States.

Until the early 1980s, foreigners needed government approval to form associations. While there are no restrictions now, France provides little money or support for ethnic or religious-based organizations.

Only in 2003 did the French government encourage the formation of an umbrella Islamic organization that could represent French Muslims to carry on a dialogue with the state.

The policy has exacerbated problems by banning any form of what Europeans refer to as positive discrimination and Americans call affirmative action.

At the same time the government has suppressed cultural expression like the Mulsim veil in schools, leading to a sense of alienation among French-Arab and French-African youth. Despite vaunted ideals, immigrants feel ghettoized and abandoned.

The political establishment remains rattled by the resurgence of virulent, racist-tinged nationalism during the last national elections.

French politicians have warned of Islamophobia.

Jews, meanwhile, say the country is encouraging and enabling Muslim anti-Semitism by tilting its politics toward the Arab world.

Young French-Arabs are caught in the middle, saying they are as alienated from their parents and their roots as they are from what they see as a prejudiced general populace in France.

Employment, most experts agree, is crucial to solving the problems and accelerating integration. The jobless rate among French-Arabs and French-Africans is as high as 30 percent in some neighborhoods.

But France, is changing.

In March, President Jacques Chirac appointed the Renault chairman, Louis Schweitzer, to head a council to fight discrimination in jobs and housing. The council has the power to take companies or individuals to court.

The country is also debating whether to bend its ethnicity-blind laws to allow positive discrimination to fight bias in the job market.

French-Arabs regularly claim that when identical résumés are submitted to an employer with an Arab name on one and a French name on another, the French name will be the one to get the job or at least be granted an interview.

"The picture of France as a country that doesn't want to recognize diversity - that's partially true," said Patrick Weil, a Paris-based expert on immigration and integration for the German Marshall Fund.

"But there's a debate now about what steps should be taken to change that."

Why don't muslim kids protest and riot in the US- because they are too busy going to school- becoming doctors, lawyers, business executives and engineers.

In Europe your Muslim population is labor and poor. Ours is generally richer and more educated.

So why don't the Latinos, an immigrant population that is often illegal, take to the streets and riot? And there are a lot of these folks. Because a lot of these Latinos can own businesses and make a lot of money even if they are illegal.

Lesson to Americans- becareful about denying illegal immigrants their rights least they pick up the torch to your car.

 

[welsh]

More on this-
How wide spread is the problem of unemployment of young folks in Europe?

Because nothing makes a riot like unemployed young men with few prospects.

How widespread have the riots been across France?

Oh yeah.... this is not a problem.
This shit happens everyday.

It's not a European problem, just that of the stupid French....

According to an English publication-

An underclass rebellion

Nov 11th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

The unrest in France’s cities shows that social and policing policy has failed, as well as integration

THEY rammed a car into the local McDonald’s, set it alight, and scarpered. In the daylight, the charred skeleton of the roof now hangs precariously beside the empty children’s slide. Across the road, riot police face a group of hooded youngsters outside the treeless estate of Les Tarterêts. Amid this destruction, a billboard on what remains of the roof carries a painfully incongruous message: “What you were not expecting from McDonald’s”.

Of course if this was farmers burning down a McDonalds, it would just be par the course.

Hamburger Royale? Fuck.

For two weeks, France has been gripped by unrest that began in one suburb north-east of Paris, later spreading around the capital’s periphery and to scores of cities across the country. In scenes that have rocked the country and are broadcast nightly on television, more than 6,000 vehicles have been set alight in nearly 300 towns; over 1,500 people have been arrested; one man has died. By Friday November 11th, the violence had subsided in many of the worst-hit areas, though sporadic incidents were still being reported in Paris, Toulouse and elsewhere.

It is the worst social turmoil the country has seen since the student-led unrest of 1968, and the government has appeared powerless to contain it. It took President Jacques Chirac ten days to appeal publicly for calm. After an emergency cabinet meeting this week, Dominique de Villepin, his prime minister, declared a state of emergency, invoking a 1955 law that allows a curfew to be imposed in troubled areas and which—with unfortunate symbolism—dates from the war in Algeria.

Problem? What this..... This isn't a problem....

Two incidents triggered the rioting. On October 27th, two teenagers—one of North African origin, the other of Malian—apparently believing themselves pursued by the police, were electrocuted in an electricity substation in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. A few days later, as trouble spread, a riot-police tear-gas grenade ended up—under unexplained circumstances—inside a prayer hall in Clichy. With no official explanation for either episode, rumour and indignation spread in equal measure.

So maybe it was that which set if off. Two kids get cooked isn't a big thing. Teargas a prayer hall, though.....

Because we know how much the French love their muslims.

This rapid domino effect reflects two broader failings and two policy problems. First, the mass unemployment that persists in a welfare system supposedly glued together by “social solidarity”. Second, the ethnic ghettos that have formed in a country that prides itself on colour-blind equality. These problems have been worsened in recent years by a deliberate hardline policing policy, and by disputes over how best to accommodate Islam in France.

Equality! Fraternity! Property!
Yeah.

Saying it so, doesn't make it so.

The bleak high-rise estates that encircle the French capital have long been neglected in more ways than one. Physically removed from the elegant tree-lined boulevards of central Paris, they house a population that is poor, jobless, angry and, mostly, of north African or west African origin. France’s overall jobless rate of nearly 10% is worrying enough; its latest youth unemployment rate of 23% is among Europe’s worst (see chart). In the “sensitive urban zones”, as officialdom coyly calls them, youth unemployment touches a staggering 40%.

"Ehhh. What de Fuck! We don't want Zees Black Muslim Bastards selling our rolls to Zees old fat French people..."

For all young people in France these days, proper jobs are scarce. As Mr de Villepin has acknowledged, 70% of all new contracts are now only temporary, and half of those last less than a month. For young people, the figure is four-fifths. The reason is what economists call an “insider-outsider” labour market: full-time permanent jobs are so protected by law that employers try not to create many, preferring instead temporary workers or interns whom they can shed more easily when times get tough. This suits the insiders, particularly those on sheltered public-sector contracts. But it leaves a whole swathe of youngsters with the very sensation of insecurity that the social system is designed to prevent.

Nothing satisfies the ego like knowing you're just disposable labor.

Note to CCR- hey.... Marx wrote about the alienation of modernization...... So did Weber.

Integration’s failings
Worse still, for those whose name is Hasim or Omar, or whose address carries the 93 postcode of Seine-Saint-Denis—the department covering the northern Paris suburbs, including Clichy-sous-Bois—securing even an interim job is a struggle. Since official French statistics do not record ethnic origin, figures are imprecise. But according to a report last year by the Institut Montaigne, a think-tank, the unemployment rate of “visible minorities” is nearly three times the national average. Young women seem able to get and hold down jobs; but many job applications from young men end up unread in the bin. This is why Claude Bébéar, the president of the Institut Montaigne, has proposed that CVs should be anonymous.

Ah... we are a color blind country.... until I have to look at your ugly Algerian face...

Discrimination against minorities is particularly awkward in France because its model of integration does not recognise that such minorities exist. Some 40-50 years after emigrants from its north African colonies stepped off the boat in Marseille, there is no hyphenated term for their French-born children or grandchildren. Hence the continuing, but inaccurate, use of “immigrant” as a proxy. Yazid Sabeg, author of the Institut Montaigne report, prefers “visible minorities” to cover the estimated 5m-6m French residents of north African origin (or roughly 10% of the population), who are mostly French. France, he says, needs to acknowledge its multiracial complexion by adapting its vocabulary, rather than hiding behind “the myth of republican equality”.

This is not just a matter of semantics. France’s integrationist approach relies on individuals clambering up the ladder by themselves. Yet this meritocratic theory clashes with the reality of segregation and poverty. The current riots, says Manuel Valls, mayor of Evry and a Socialist member of parliament, “are the consequences of 30 years of ethnic and social segregation” resulting in what he calls “territorial apartheid”, combined with the “bankruptcy of the model of integration: in France, our social elevator is blocked.”

Kharn- is this where you are about to say something about the superiority of European immigrant policies?

France has never been shy to articulate what the country stands for and what it expects of its citizens. The ban in 2004 on the Muslim headscarf in state schools, not to mention the frequent expulsion of radical imams, make its philosophy crystal clear. Given the fresh emphasis on citizenship in multicultural countries, this is in some ways a strength of the French system. Yet, at the same time, the failure of minorities to get far up the social ladder shows the limits of the French model.

At the top end, the contrast with multicultural Britain is noticeable. There are now 15 British members of parliament from ethnic minorities, including Muslims; some of the best-known broadcasters are black or brown. In France, aside from those representing its overseas territories, there are no minorities in parliament. French television news anchors are almost exclusively white, as is much of the police force. Role models with credibility tend to be entertainers or sports stars. As Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and head of the ruling UMP party, often says: “If we want young Muslim offspring of immigrants to succeed we need examples of success, and not only from football.”

In the US, this led to affirmative action programs.
Oh and Kharn, before you go off and say 'Oh look how crappy that system worked out.'
Consider that racial segregation was legal until the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and most blacks, nearly 75% were.
Now only 25% of Blacks live in poverty and they are considered to be one of the most upward mobile communities in the US.

Ignoring the problem will not make the problem go away.

France has no monopoly on isolated ghettos with high unemployment. But this trouble has been long brewing. Even before the riots, car-burning had become a ritual gesture of criminal defiance in the suburbs. In the first seven months of this year, an astonishing 21,900 vehicles were torched across the country, up on the previous year. Two further factors seem to turn general malaise into chronic violence: a zero-tolerance policing policy, and the stigmatisation of Islam.

France has no monopoly on isolated ghettos....

Frustrations on the ground
To see how the two are intertwined, consider the neighbouring suburbs of Evry and Corbeil-Essonnes, south of Paris. Each is home to rain-streaked concrete high-rise estates; multiple faiths, tongues and colours; and the usual cocktail of joblessness, broken families, truancy and drug-dealing. Each has also, however, embarked on big renovation schemes for their worst housing projects. Evry has secured €60m ($70m) to renovate its worst estate, Les Pyramides. Two towers in Les Tarterêts, in Corbeil, are due to be demolished.

It took a week for the riots to spread there from the northern suburbs. By Monday, 416 cars had been burned and 116 people arrested in the department of Essonne, which covers these two suburbs. Two primary schools were torched in Evry, as was the McDonald’s in Corbeil. The police discovered a store of over 100 Molotov cocktails, along with petrol cannisters and balaclavas, in a warehouse located—believe it or not—underneath a disused municipal police station in Evry.

Not far from that stash, young men eating kebabs and frites at the Etoile Sandwicherie Patisserie, Spécialités Turques, are quite clear about the causes of the violence. “It’s Sarkozy’s fault,” says one. The police harass anybody “with the wrong skin colour,” adds another. Further down the road, at the mosque, a young man mopping the steps agrees: “The police don’t leave us alone,” he says. “They stop you for no reason.”

Police harassing people with the wrong skin color? Hey that sounds like the African-American experience in the US!

One complaint against Mr Sarkozy is his choice of words. To call the rioters “scum” may go down well on the right, but was sheer provocation for the youths on the streets. The other broader grudge against him is his tough policing methods. These were introduced in 2002, when he was first made interior minister, to counteract a widespread feeling of insecurity. Mr Sarkozy cracked down on illegal immigrants and prostitutes, forbade “hostile gatherings” in the entrance halls of buildings and armed the municipal police with Flash Ball rubber pellets.

Yet the price is that young minorities feel victimised as never before, rather as Afro-Caribbean Britons did ahead of the 1981 Brixton riots, which led to a shake-up of British policing. Official complaints are few, as many are afraid to lodge them. But given the rage felt against les keufs (street slang for les flics, or cops), copycat riots, however mindless, became a chance for young minorities to get their own back.

The role of Islam in the rioting is more complicated. Some commentators see signs of a jihad on the streets of Paris. Ivan Rioufol, a columnist for Le Figaro, called it “the beginnings of an intifada”. Yet intelligence sources suggest that this is not organised violence but anarchic rioting, helped by internet and mobile-phone contact. Roughly half of those arrested have been teenagers, most of them in their own suburbs, since they lack the transport to go anywhere else. Even in Evry, where the petrol-bomb store was uncovered, officials say that the teenagers involved were petty criminals, not radicalised fanatics. This was the angry rebellion of a beardless, Nike-wearing teenage underclass.

Many of the country’s Muslim clerics agree. “This is not about Islam,” declares Khalil Merroun, rector of the Evry mosque. “The rioting youths have no notion of Islam or what the Koran teaches.” The Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF), a hard-talking group, has issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from taking part in the violence. Some local Muslim associations have been organising night-time patrols to try to calm the rioters.

At the same time, the Muslim background of many of the rioters is a factor. France boasts Europe’s biggest Muslim population, and has had more trouble digesting this minority than any that arrived before it. Young Muslim men in particular seem to feel emasculated by their failure to get jobs like their sisters, victimised by the police and unrepresented by the society they live in. Ready potential recruits, in other words, for seductive ideologies such as radical Islam.

Which goes back to why radical Islam has such a strong vibe in Europe. Maybe it's because there's a bigger audience for it because fewer people are getting a chance to participate?

Wait- Kharn is going to say- Because they are all being spied on by the FBI and Homeland Security..... Yeah.

Of the country’s 1,500 or so mosques or informal prayer places, some 50 are run by radical Islamists, according to a report last year by the Renseignements Généraux, a domestic intelligence-gathering service. Of those, 30 are in or near Paris. Officials are particularly concerned by French Muslims now in Iraq, and by recent converts, especially those who found their faith in prison; over half the country’s prison population is Muslim, according to a study by Farhad Khosrokhavar, a sociologist.

Half the prison population is Muslim.
Funny, I would imagine half the AMerican prison population is Black.
And ironically, this group has been a source of recruits for the Nation of Islam.

It was partly to try to bring Islam out from the shadows, and to co-opt its tough-talking leaders, that Mr Sarkozy set up the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) in 2003. The idea was to give Islam an official voice, and to temper it by offering recognition. In one sense, this has worked. Although the component factions on the council have spent much time squabbling, the CFCM helped the government with its headscarf ban by deciding not to contest it. Even the UOIF’s decision this week to issue a unilateral fatwa was a useful appeal for calm. But the worry now is that radical groups, unrepresented on the council, may exploit the current anger.

While the suburbs burn
When the French rejected the European Union constitution earlier this year, it seemed at the time to be the final humiliation for Mr Chirac. Less than six months later, his government has been making headlines around the globe for its inability to control the riots. The referendum rejection was seen as a wake-up call for the governing class from an electorate that was fed up and fearful. Now France has delivered one even more shrill.

Even assuming that the rioting works itself out, no mainstream politician is likely to emerge unscathed. The far right will surely gain support. But the Socialist Party has been too split to offer any sensible suggestions. And the centre-right government has been left looking impotent, confused and more engrossed by the undeclared contest between Mr de Villepin and Mr Sarkozy ahead of the 2007 presidential election than by the need to formulate social policy.

For Mr Chirac, the riots have underlined how removed he appears from the daily lives of people only a few kilometres from his doorstep. In his 11th year in the presidency, the sudden discovery of the blighted suburbs appears disingenuous. Mr de Villepin comes out little better. In October, having faced down striking workers, he had appeared to gain authority. But the riots have diminished it. His decision to declare a state of emergency was greeted as too late or too drastic; his promise of more policemen, more jobs, more apprenticeships, more money sounded all too familiar.

Harder to judge is how Mr Sarkozy will fare. His social-policy mantra is “firmness but fairness”: acting tough on security while being fair towards minorities. This is how he explains the logic of his policy of cracking down on illegal immigration with one hand, while with the other advocating “positive discrimination” to promote ethnic minorities.

Positive discrimination.... Is that like affirmative action?

Such ideas have the merit of raising hard questions about racial equality in France, though they are viewed as “unFrench” by both left and right. When Mr Sarkozy named the country’s only “Muslim” prefect, and labelled him as such, he was lambasted for pushing the country towards multiculturalism.

So far, Mr Sarkozy has managed to tread a road between what might be called social authoritarianism and progressive liberalism. But he may get tangled in their contradictions. The political right certainly approves of his tough talk. And he has at least had the courage to head to the suburbs at night to try to calm things down. But he has been no more effective at that than anyone else. A poll carried out for Paris-Match magazine during the rioting suggested that his popularity had dropped relative to Mr de Villepin’s.

Back in Evry, frustration runs high on all sides. At the mosque after midday prayers, one man considers the burning of McDonald’s fair game—“It’s American”—but is outraged at the torching of the primary schools. In the town hall, officials are distressed that their efforts to improve the worst estates have not deflected trouble. All agree that something in France has to change. “If the young are to get to love France,” reflects the mayor, Mr Valls, himself of immigrant Spanish origin, “France has got to learn to love them.”