Paris gripped by new riots despite government resolve (AFP)

[Up2Late]

(8th night of Rioting and it sounds like it only getting worst, I hope this is not too close to my Cousin's house.):scared:

Paris gripped by new riots despite government resolve

04/11/2005 06h44


Firefighters extinguish a torched car in Le Blanc Mesnil ©AFP - Jack Guez

PARIS (AFP) - Fresh rioting broke out on the outskirts of Paris overnight as gangs of youths challenged authorities' vows to crack down on urban violence that has plagued the French capital for over a week. Police said more than 160 cars were torched in the Paris region and 33 in the provinces, but the night seemed calmer than Thursday when 315 vehicles were burnt in the Ile-de-France region around the capital.

Buses, fire engines and police were again stoned in the Paris suburbs, with five policemen reported slightly injured by projectiles, but there were fewer direct confrontations between police and "troublemakers", according to a police spokesman. One of the worst incidents took place at Neuilly-sur-Marne where police vans came under fire from pellet pistols, but nobody was hurt. Neuilly-sur-Marne is in the worst-hit northeastern region of Seine-Saint-Denis, where 1,300 officers were deployed, and more than 30 people were arrested there and elsewhere.

A fire was started in a primary school in Stains, as police were targeted by a group of 30 to 40 people near the synagogue. Paris firemen were fighting a blaze at a carpet warehouse in Aulnay-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis. Dutch truckers told an AFP reporter that they had seen a group of youths briefly enter the building.

And for the first time since the troubles erupted on Thursday last week, there were sporadic signs of copycat rampages elsewhere in France. Police said several cars in the eastern city of Dijon were set alight, while similar attacks took place in the western Seine-Maritime region and the Bouches-du-Rhone in the south of the country.

<http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/051104054805.eubdec6m.html>
(more at link above)

[autorank]

1. Vive la France. This takes real guts. The French police in Paris

are down right scary. They're well armed, well trained, and know how to kick the living s... out of just about anyone who messes with them.

I'd love to see O'Reilly go over there and mouth off to one of them.

France has a tradition from Louis XIV on of preserving centralized authority. It's more than just demonstrators versus this particuar government. There is a real bias toward centralizd control...and the cops are a tough opponent. So are pissed off citizens...

[tocqueville]

2. the problem is that they haven't been using real force

they thought that the rioting would be limited to the first incident.

The gangs understand that they could win a show of force because the political class is divided and a control of the poorest neighbourhoods retained.

France doesn't have a National Guard. The closest is the Gendarmerie.
They are very reluctant to use firearms even when shot at.

I think it is a mistake. They should declare martial law in those neighbourhoods and clean up the mess. Then reconstruct the social life.

The only winners right now are the gangs and the far right.

[julianer]

4. You know what 'the gangs'

are thinking? I doubt it.

From what I've read this is a response to the casual quotidian violence and insults of the police.

Sarkozy has been itching for some sort of confrontation like this so he can unleash his reaction. The build up in police aggression is part of the policy, probably.

Frankly I'm a bit shocked that someone on DU is calling for martial law to protect an anti-worker, right wing government.

[autorank]

5. No kidding...you never know what you'll hear sometimes. Good post!

[tocqueville]

6. You have no idea of the situation here

Due to incompetence from both left and right governments, some areas have become no-law areas in France. It's a fact. There were ghettos of that sort in the US before (still are probably).

What Sarkozy is doing is the same that Giuliani did in New York. The gangs didn't like so they answer with a smart tactic, using riots.

It's true that there are deep social problems in those areas. But when police, firemen, social workers, doctors ARE NOT ALLOWED to go in unless under protection, what are you suppose to do to solve them.

France is the country which is the most tolerant to civil disorder (aplies to strikes etc..). The French behaviours wouldn't be tolerated in ANY other western democratic countries.

"response to the casual quotidian violence and insults of the police"

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

THEY ARE NOT THERE !!!! THAT's WHERE THE PROBLEM IS....

[julianer]

7. I am not entirely clueless about what is

happening in France. I can read French.

What I do is affix a political analysis on events. In this case it is that a group of society that is excluded and mistreated has reacted violently against the representatives of the state that marginalises them.

Your call for a Giuliani style clampdown tells me that your analysis is somewhat different - perhaps that a blameless and fair society is threatened by lawless outsiders who have no respect for others. Frankly I disagree with this line, if it is what you think.

The answer to this recurring problem is not repression and state violence. It is greater social inclusion, an attack on the appalling racism of French society and a much fairer distribution of wealth and opportunity.

I'm afraid I am not as able to express this as a pro journalist so here is a link that I agree with:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/fran-n04.shtml

[tocqueville]

8. trotskyite point of view

not very representative

[julianer]

15. Do points of view have to representative? Of whom?

Please try and argue your point rather than dismiss me as a Trot. I'm not, I'm a socialist.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. The World Socialist Web Site is Trotskyist

It is "published by the International Committee of the Fourth International", and its front page has a section "Fifty years since the founding of the International Committee of the Fourth International", with articles such as "Chris Marsden: The split with the WRP and the ascendancy of Trotskyism" and "David North addresses Sri Lankan Trotskyists on the 50th anniversary of the ICFI".

This isn't dismissing you as a Trot. It's pointing the article you said agree with is Trotskyist.

[julianer]

29. Thanks, but I knew that

I just happen to agree with what the article says.

If anyone disagrees with it and wishes to discuss it with me then I'm very happy to oblige, but I can't accept that I can just be dismissed because I agree with WSWS.

[TomClash]

10. The youth don't have jobs

Generally, if you have a job, you don't riot.

Then again there is the Freeper answer: just kill them all.

I agree with Tocqueville - if there is no social order you cannot have social inclusion, racial tolerance and fairer wealth distribution. These are positive long term goals but they cannot be achieved in the middle of widespread rioting.

[tocqueville]

12. I don't deny the social problems

but the latest spreading shows that Islamists are behind rhe rioting

they use tactics that normally are not used by amateurs

the latest is that a handicapped woman has been severely burnt when a FULL buss has been set on fire.

This goes far beyond social unrest.

Nobody except extremists want to "kill them all". But the response has been too tame. In the US the National Guard had been required and a majority of Americans had found it totally acceptable.

[julianer]

17. You are depressing me.

Scary Islamists are now involved and are taking it 'beyond social unrest'.

No doubt there is some connection with Iran and Syria?

[sweepster]

22. Have the Muslim Imans declared Friday..

as the day to step up the riots and violence now that Ramadan is over Thursday? Thought CNN reported it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. That sounds extremely unlikely

And such a provocative move would surely be all over the news. Have you any evidence at all that imams are encouraging the riots? It's an extremely serious charge you are laying against them. You need more than "thought CNN reported it".

[400Years]

27. anybody advocating a Guiliani style fascist clampdown is a fool

Guiliani destroyed New York and only a fascist idiot would support his methods or goals.

[sweepster]

28. I guess I am facist fool

for agreeing with Guiliani when he cracked down on the gangs and hoodlums and made New York's streets safer.

Those criminals are the victims I guess. (Major sarc)

[400Years]

46. that much is obvious

and your pathetic labeling of anybody who opposes the status quo as "hoodlums" betrays your chickenshit sarcasm

[Dutch]

47. What's pathetic is smearing anyone you disagree with as a "fascist"

It is afterall a move straight out of the Daniel Pipes playbook. If someone "opposes the status quo" by setting light to a bus full of people, to call them hoodlums is innaccurate only in its mildness- however much of a patronisingly romanticised spin you seek to put on it.

[sweepster]

45. Keep us posted over whats happening over there.

Not much in our media. Just the same old video clips.

[High Plains]

54. Wait a minute! First you told me it was the drug gangs...

...now it's the Islamists.

And tomorrow it'll be the organized child molesters...

Viva Sarkozy, huh?

[tocqueville]

56. first the gangs, then the islamists

how do you think the later finance their little enterprises ?

they pass deal with the gangs about drug dealing, cellphones, stolen cars etc...

sometimes they are part of the gangs

read any report about the LOCAL financing of the "franchised" Al Quaeda groups ? Do you think they go to the post office to retrieve a check from OBL ?

Then in good "hamas style" they organize an "intifada" BECAUSE THEY WANT A STATU QUO IN THE SUBURBS...

of course they use rampant racism, unemployment and lack of integration. It's their recruitment base.

Fighting poverty is one thing but it doesn't excuse VIOLENT criminality, or criminality at all

[blitzen]

58. Yeah, right....It not France's fault for exploiting cheap

immigrant labor, treating them like shit, relegating them to ghettos...

It's Islam's fault! Yeah, that's it!

[tocqueville]

59. I never said that, that it was "Islams fault"

I said the Islamist movance have ties to the drug-dealing gangs. It's a known fact.

And even if it wasn't so, it doesn't excuse the gangs to create havoc to keep control over their territories...

According to you the looters in New Orleans (not the ones chasing food) are to be excused. When the state of law disappears (catastrophes, negligence etc..) you always have rogue elements profiting over the situation.

Nobody in France (nor I for that matter) have been condemning the whole immigrant population. BTW I live in such a neighbourhood.

The first victims of the gangs are the immigrants and the poors.

[julianer]

16. For heaven's sake

Do you think people just think 'hey let's have a riot and destroy our own communities'?

These riots are a result of years of NOT bothering to build social inclusion, racial tolerance etc. No one is trying to achieve such things, and no one in these areas appears to have any faith in formal politics. These riots would not have happened, in all probability, if it hadn't been for Sarkozy's ratcheting up of tension for his own electoral purposes.

Sarkozy and de Villepin are trying to do the exact opposite of build social inclusion - they are trying to cause social splits so they can destroy the welfare state. Sound familiar?

[TomClash]

19. I do not disagree with you

except to the extent that order must be restored to implement social change. You cannot redistribute wealth in the middle of a riot.

[julianer]

30. Your arguments

would probably have been similar to the ones made by the supporters of Louis XVI in 1789!

They have absolutely no intention of re-distributing wealth - except upwards to the bourgeoisie.

[TomClash]

55. Fine - I tried to be nice to you - you want to fight?

Your useless arguments have no practical import. They are the stuff of the fraudulent pseudo-intellectual class who hate working people and simply use them to attain their own New Class goals. When "the Revolution" comes, you will not be in the vanguard - you will be nothing more than cannon fodder for the more dyanmic and able participants who can actually conceive of a plan of action. Indeed, your views reveal surprisingly little life experience, exposing you as no more than a putrid Jacobin-wannabe.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Mais tocqueville est en France,

et vous n'est pas.

You talk of "the appalling racism of French society" but every black American I know who has been to France, or any part of Europe, has said they felt wonderfully free there, they felt that no one stared at them as people stare at them in the US. I've walked through Italy with a black women and she said repeatedly that she would like to live in Italy.

Immigration has been a problem throughout history. People resent it when hordes of foreigners start crowding into their lands. A certain number of foreigners are tolerated, even welcomed. But when it gets crowded, it's another story. There are many factors that complicate things further.

Social inclusion is a great ideal but it only works when the immigrants want to be included. Some don't. That's the case in Europe with some Albanian, Sudanese, Turkish, etc. immigrants, and it's the case in the US with some Hispanics. Maybe it will take a generation or two for immigrants to want to associate with the people native to their new country.

[AngryAmish]

18. Black americans are considered american in France and Italy

However north africans are considered "real" africans and thus less than human. I should add this is by the bigots and not everyone in those societies.

[tocqueville]

57. by the BIGOTS yes

they are a minority

[julianer]

31. The thing about racism in France

is that there are a lot of racists. In 2002 Le Pen got 18% of the vote and he's an outright fascist.

I'm afraid that I can't really take your arguments about racism very seriously if you are going to couch them in terms like 'Immigration has been a problem throughout history' and 'hordes of foreigners start crowding into their lands', since these are the sort of arguments I'm familiar with coming from racists.

[IA_Seth]

52. Not to pick...

but wouldn't correct french be "vous n'etes pas"....or you could have written Tu n'es pas...

I am pretty sure "est" is the form of etre (to be) used with Il/Elle/On.

[High Plains]

53. Yeah, viva Sarkozy, right?

It's interesting to find French ultra-rightists like Sarkozy, who certainly deserves some of the blame for starting this shit, having their lines parroted on DU.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

3. The rioters have no agenda.

They do not appear to have any political purpose in mind, except to get the police out of their neighborhoods.

I know there are some suburbs of Paris that are a virtual no-man's-land, crowded and dangerous.

[julianer]

33. Well Red Ant

lot's of things coming out of their holes today!

Why should/how could a crowd of angry people have a political agenda?

I expect their agenda is to stop having the police arrest them, insult their mothers and throw tear grenades into mosques amongst other things.

Of course one part of the equation is politically motivated - Nicolas Sarkozy's provocative, repressive policing strategy, designed to gain him the leadership of the UMP instead of de Villepin, and to become president at the next elections.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

62. Crowds in Watts, and Chicago '68

had a pretty clearly defined agenda.

I hadn't heard about the rioters' mothers being insulted - I have changed my mind - let them burn down the city!

I hadn't heard about the tear-gas grenades being fired into mosques, either...is that police policy? Was the mosque clearly discernable as such? Just wondering... I have seen some rather nondescript mosques in my time, so perhaps it was a mistake.

The cry of the mob in Watts was "Burn, baby, burn!"

I lieu of an adequate, fairly administered social policy, repression is the only alternative.

[K-W]

38. You are contradicting yourself.

They do not appear to have any political purpose in mind, except to get the police out of their neighborhoods.

Getting the police out of thier neighborhoods would qualify as both and agenda and political purpose in mind. You may not agree with it, but it is a purpose and an agenda.

But yes, by definition, riots have no agenda. They are chaotic collective action. Some of them have agenda's, many of them are simply acting out irrationally.

I know there are some suburbs of Paris that are a virtual no-man's-land, crowded and dangerous.

Out of curiousity, how can a no-man's land be crowded?

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

63. You're right

I guess I think of no-man's-land as not so much empty of people, as empty of community spirit. Poor usage...

[teryang]

9. this kind of violence could erupt in American cities

...as well. The anger is there just below the surface just waiting for the right provocation to go off.

[DemBones DemBones]

14. You're right, and I hate to think

that I might ever want martial law. But I am kind of attached to my life.

[bemildred]

20. That's what I'm waiting for. You can see the signs. But not quite yet.

Maybe this Winter, we can start with food or fuel riots.
And once the headless monster starts to move, we are all going along for the ride.

[Flagg]

11. Handicapped woman set alight during Paris riots: prosecutors

HANDICAPPED WOMAN SET ALIGHT DURING PARIS RIOTS: PROSECUTORS
Received Friday, 4 November 2005 11:39:00 GMT

PARIS, Nov 4 (AFP) - A 56-year-old handicapped woman was set on fire during the riots that have raged around Paris, and is currently in hospital with severe burns, state prosecutors said Friday.
The woman was on a bus in the northern suburb of Sevran when youths threw a Molotov cocktail on board late Wednesday. All the other passengers quickly evacuated, but she was unable to get off.
According to prosecutors, one youth doused the woman with petrol before others threw a flaming rag on the vehicle.
The driver rescued her, and she was taken to hospital suffering second- and third-degree burns to 20 percent of her body, they said.
The incident was one of the worst reported during the nightly riots that have raged around the French capital since Thursday of last week.
A fireman was also being treated for burns to his face received when a Molotov cocktail was thrown at him earlier in the week.

http://www.ttc.org/200511041139.ja4bdev09652.htm

[tx_dem41]

21. And this is what some here appear to be justifying, defending,

and in a few cases hoping for. Beautiful world some of you want. :eyes:

I agree with Toqueville, who actually lives in France. Change cannot occur until order is restored.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. It is a worrying reaction, isn't it?

A few here are saying "yay, riots".

Time for a few figures for those people to consider:

Gini index: United States 45, France 32.7 (the US has more inequality in income)

France is not some capitalist hell. Whose health system would people prefer if you were poor, the French one or the American one?

[julianer]

37. Perhaps the rioters

should have asked you for your ok before they got started? I don't imagine your life is similar to the people in these places, so how can you condemn them?

I presume you are including me in your 'yay, riots' jibe? But you choose not to talk to me about it?

As I've mentioned above - it is not necessary to agree or disagree with these riots - to me the question itself is stupid. The question is why are they happening and what are the possible outcomes.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. No, I'm not including you

I'm talking about quotes like this: "Vive La France! Vive La Revolution!
Yay! Anarchy.... Reaping what they sow! Payback time Frenchies...."

I can condemn people who start burning cars, and throwing molatov cocktails into occupied buses. Life in France is not bad enough to justify that. The problem is that a few on DU are agreeing with the riots.

[julianer]

42. I don't condemn anyone

involved. I'm not there, I don't really know what caused this or what has really happened. I'm sure most actually involved haven't a clue either.

But I think it is silly to use the language of morality when dealing with social movements. After all, in whose interest is it to paint the common hordes as immoral when, perhaps, they explode under intolerable pressure?

You may be right that this riot is somehow 'immoral' (I can't see how) and deserves condemnation. But you must admit that if people were really concerned about 'morality' when rioting, as well as those sitting at home many miles away, then nothing would ever change. The American revolutionaries, for example, or the poll tax rioters in the UK, would have immediately condemned themselves as immoral. The results are that the Americans would still be blessed with our wise rule and the Brits suffering under the poll tax.

So in terms of morality - well, it really is extraneous to the issue.

[muriel_volestrangler]

43. Civil disobedience should be proportionate to the problem

and directed at the people causing the problem. Setting light to an occupied bus is immoral, in my judgement, the judgement of that vast majority of the world, and, I suspect, if you think about it, your judgement too. The occupants of the bus didn't cause any deprivation in the suburbs. They may well suffer from it themselves. The owners of the burnt out cars may be a bit better off, but the fact that the live in the same poor suburbs probably means they're not rich. Because the rioters are hurting innocent people, morality is most certainly important in this issue.

If these people were really concerned about the poverty level, they'd be protesting at government buildings, or some symbol of the French economic system, like the Bourse. Instead they're buggering up their own area. They'd also have some real demands. These riots are not comparable to either the American Revolution of the British poll tax protests.

[julianer]

51. You may be right

but your opinion is certainly irrelevant to anyone involved on the ground and has no bearing on a proper understanding of the situation.

If you want to blithely condemn the motivations and actions of people you know nothing about then I can't stop you.

It seems a little pointless to me, though, not to mention a little egocentric.

[julianer]

34. Why is it that

people cannot comment on what is actually happening without being told that you are 'justifying, defending' other people's violence?

Are you incapable of seeing a situation objectively? Or must everything be imbued with some moral value that you must either agree or disagree with.

And finally, the change on offer in France is much the same as Bush wants for you. Social improvement is decidedly not on the agenda.

[yellowcanine]

36. Don't you mean "lived" in France, not "lives" in France? Link here to

to Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805-1859.

http://www.tocqueville.org/chap1.htm

[rinsd]

44. While I agree with this assessment....

"Change cannot occur until order is restored."

Don't these stories ring as a little outrageous?

The woman dying because they moltav cocktailed a bus is one thing.

But the story about them dumping gas on the woman beforehand?

[bee]

24. no cause warrants this type of thing.

This is vile. just vile.

[JVS]

61. terrible

[yellowcanine]

32. Paris, May 1968 student street violence led by "Danny the Red"

http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/241

Just one more thing that happened that eventful year.

[Flagg]

35. Those "riots" have absolutely nothing in common with the events 1968

...

[yellowcanine]

39. I disagree. Yes, apparently different protagonists- immigrants vs.

university students. But beyond that, the stories are very similar, right down to the perception of provocations by the government to claims by the authorities of instigation by "outside agitators". Time will tell but my guess is that the Paris police could learn a lot by studying the events of May 1968.

[julianer]

40. What on earth does that mean?

In that they are in France and involve riots, I'd say they are very similar.

In that the people involved are working class immigrants rather than lower middle class students (at least to start with) they are different.

The level of police violence appears to be higher this time round - you don't want to rough up the middle class kids too much because you don't know who their dad might be!

And also, of course, this time the riot is a result of discernable grievances and state policy - in '68 the reasons were much less material and the state was caught on the hop.

Edited to add this:

It is interesting to me that so many here are inclined to automatically take a moral position on this and also to automatically take the view that somehow the rioters need to be 'crushed', that they are bad and the police are supplying the justice, not the violence as well.

Deeply ingrained conservatism, that is, IMHO>

[Kralizec]

48. If there were riots like this in the U.S., with Bush as a leader,

there would be dead people by now.

[Up2Late]

50. Probably right, and I bet * would still take another weekend off at...

...Camp David or the Ranch.

[Up2Late]

49. France in crisis as riots spread (AFP)

(This is really getting out ou control) :(

France in crisis as riots spread

04/11/2005 17h51


A warehouse bruns in Aulnay-sous-Bois ©AFP - Jack Guez

PARIS (AFP) - Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy held a crisis meeting on running riots that have plunged France into its worst explosion of urban violence in decades. The number one and number two in President Jacques Chirac's embattled government huddled in Villepin's offices to discuss ways to tackle the troubles, which were headed into their ninth straight night with 30 vehicles being set alight in the Bobigny suburb east of the capital even as the ministers met.


A woman looks at the 27 buses which went up in flames overnight ©AFP - Mehdi Fedouach

Gangs of youths have gone on the rampage since October 27, when two teenagers were electrocuted in a tough, low-income suburb north of Paris as they hid in an electrical sub-station to flee a police identity check. The riots have spread each night, eventually surrounding Paris then, overnight Thursday, flaring also in Marseille, Dijon and in Normandy -- and even in central parts of the capital itself.

Overwhelmed police have found themselves powerless to stop the conflagration, which has seen over 1,000 vehicles torched and more than 200 people arrested amid fears that the country's racial and social divisions were fuelling the violence, the worst seen since a 1968 student revolt. As the violence has progressed, it has taken on an increasingly dangerous tone, with widespread fire-bombings, occasional shots fired at riot squads -- and prosecutors revealing that a handicapped woman was deliberately set on fire.

According to prosecutors Friday, a 56-year-old woman was unable to get off a bus targeted by a Molotov cocktail late Wednesday in the northern Paris suburb of Sevran. She was allegedly doused with petrol by one youth, then others threw a flaming rag on her. Rescued by the driver, she was taken to hospital with severe burns to 20 percent of her body.

<http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/051104175136.ibxds4l7.html>
(more atlink above)

[JVS]

60. Will Montreal take this cue to rebel and cast off their Canadian chains?

[maddezmom]

64. locking

updated link here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1902484