The riots began Oct. 27 after the accidental deaths of two teenagers hiding from police. But that incident now seems little more than a trigger for an explosion of anger and alienation that has accumulated for years in France’s poor, predominantly Muslim neighborhoods.

Of course many have and will continue to blame the French economic model which institutionalizes stagnation and high unemployment. That said, exactly how many of the “angry and alienated young men” tossing gas bombs have really tried to integrate into the country they live? Do they consider themselves Muslims first and French a distant second? They live in a country not torn by war in one of the most generous social systems in the world yet appears to be guilty of being non-Muslim. Do these young men view a secular France as something that must be destroyed? Are car bombs the next step?

Living in a country, America, that has been improved for centuries by immigrants that bring their labor, know-how, and desire to integrate, the experiences of Western Europe are hard for me to comprehend. It’s hard to imagine an America without Italians, Irish, Mexicans, Chinese, etc., etc. I’m not sure the same can be said about a France and its North African immigrants. Have they “improved” France or are they remaining distant from it only now to be burning down everything they can?

And how about the many French immigrants from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe? Are they running around tossing Molotov cocktails at cars? I don’t think so.

Of course the mainstream media have a different take. From the AP (today):

The violence has escalated from an outburst of anger in suburban Paris housing projects into a nationwide show of disdain for French authority from youths and minorities, most French-born children of Arab and black Africans angered by years of unequal opportunities.

Notice that they didn’t say “perceived” unequal opportunities? I guess that settles it then.

Google Maps Europe 2015?

Update: A moment of irony: schools and businesses are being targeted as part of the protest against lack of education and jobs.

Update: Captain’s Quarters reports that both American and French media sources warned of coordinated Islamist action against France in the weeks before the riot. Agence France Presse even had a quote from the maligned Nicolas Sarkozy noting the imminent nature of the threat in its 9/27 dispatch. (The “elephant” in the room just got bigger.)

Update: If you search Google’s French site for keywords “banlieues” (suburbs) and “émeutes” (riots), you will supposedly find an ad for the French conservative ruling party, of which Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is the president. When I tried to replicate it nothing came up so I’m not sure if the ads have been pulled because of political pressure or because they hit their Google Adwords spending limit for the month. (Reminds me of a certain Hans Island spat).

photo sources: f***france.com

technorati: france

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 6th, 2005 at 8:46 pm by Insider and is filed under France, We Taunt You. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.