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Leonidas View Drop Down
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  Quote Leonidas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Paris riots
    Posted: 27-Nov-2005 at 06:34
More analysis on the rioters. THis is quite interesting take on its all.

The "Non-Political" Nature of the November Riots
"
What is striking about today's French riots are their "non-political" nature. That does not mean, of course, that politics do not play a role. Instead, it means that those gangs performing the violent actions do not propose anything politically subversive, nor really anything political at all. In addition, it means that the rioters will get little or no support from other French people.

In fact, the rioters do not fight for civil or human rights. They know that the French government has already given them such rights. However, they perceive such rights as purely formal and institutional, but not actual. According to some interviewed youths, the very fact to be born in a suburban area and to keep a non-European cultural identity (Islam and Arab names) creates a specific representation of their relationship with France.

The rioters argue that they feel scorned upon, and therefore react with anger and rage. They are citizens of France without being part of the French national identity. On the basis of the available information, it is possible to exclude Islamism from the causes of the rioting. It is not religious extremism, but ethnic friction which has the great effect of exacerbating social differences.

Individually, or even taken as a group, the rioters seem to be revolting against their own condition and context. They destroy their own quarters, their neighbor's vehicle or small enterprise. Their actions look as a desperate attempt to signal their will to access the "wealthy society." Such a society may be just five underground train stops away. Still, they almost never go there. They act in their own environment, as if they were unable to move -- limiting their free movement inside their own country."

Unfortunalty the article predicts a right wing response

The Bottom Line

"The French government decided to adopt a hard line against rioters, and the last surveys indicate that three out of four French citizens support the introduction of curfews in the affected suburbs. The coming days will probably be decisive to assess the efficiency of such measures. Should the move fail, the revolt could spread further and even pave the way for foreign activists with plans of terrorism (as French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy suggests).

As the 2007 general election approaches, look for immigration and integration issues to take central stage permanently in the French political debate. Depending on the chosen national policies in these fields, expect France to try to influence its European partners to introduce new European legislation on immigration issues, and, if such an attempt fails, to enhance its own national program even in opposition of Brussels.

Since the French right-wing is split among many factions, be prepared for a harsh battle inside the French Right. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is probably the one who risks the most in the present phase for the simple reason of being the prime minister during this time. If the security issue does not get solved rapidly, his entire political agenda will be severely hampered and his ambitious industrial policy will be difficult to maintain.

Moreover, given the loss of momentum of Jean-Marie Le Pen's rightist National Front, an interesting competition will take place between the neo-liberal Nicolas Sarkozy and the Catholic sovereignist leader Philippe de Villiers."

the whole article


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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Nov-2005 at 06:26
New update: though the riots have subsided for the most part, anonymous leaders of the revolt warn of a civil war if Sarkozy is elected president.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4463862.stm

In declarations to the BBC a group of anonym youths from Clichy-sous-Bois and other Parisian banlieues, who accept leadership on the riots, say the following:



(...)

"We want jobs like everyone," says Mohamed. "We want to be respected and we want to get out of the estates."

As he says this, he breaks down in laughter. I ask why.

"Because we know it's not possible," he says.

Some of the youths say they have secondary school qualifications, but say they cannot get jobs because of racism.

"It's because we're Arab or black," says Rida. "Go to a business and try finding a black guy to talk to. There aren't any. They're all white there."

He brings out a tattered photograph. It shows him holding a gun - not a revolver but a 12-bore shotgun.

"We're armed," says Mohamed. "We're well armed and in 2007, if Sarkozy becomes president, we'll have a real war. That's why they didn't want to attack Iraq, because they know if they attack Iraq, there'll be big trouble in France."

(...)

"We're only French on paper," says Mohamed. "I was at school with a friend. I passed my exams and he didn't. We both applied for the same job as a salesman, but they took him because he's white."

And these young men are convinced that the only time anyone listens to their grievances is when there are cars burning in the streets.


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  Quote ScythianEmpire Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Nov-2005 at 14:29
yeah, you're right on that Maju. Integration works both ways. Also depends how you define integration.
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  Quote Kapikulu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Nov-2005 at 16:58

Well, I believe these riots were return of smart-alecky and so-called French democracy and equality, which is present theorically but not practically.

 

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Nov-2005 at 06:33
Wikipedia has this nice animation on the spread of the riots. I think it's a good update:



And also this graphic on their intensity:



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  Quote Cywr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Nov-2005 at 12:34
Both the disinterest in assimilation, and the lack of encouragement for same have inevitably led to segregation, separatist identity and ill feeling on both sides.


You don't think unemployment and discrimination has anything to do with it?

The French model would be close to perfect if there was no such thing as a French Xenophobe, sadly thats not the case.
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  Quote Beylerbeyi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Nov-2005 at 12:14

The Politically Correct mantra of "diversity" has been enunciated again and again. 

This comment alone shows you don't know anything about France. You are just another Yankee who thinks everywhere is like America. And you are trying to score some points for your side in America, by coming up with this neuron-free analysis of France.

Here's the news for you, the French have a different social integration model than the Anglo-Saxon one. They don't talk about 'diversity', but about French values, which are based on enlightenment, and say that everyone who has these values is French like any other. So on paper Ali is as French as Alain, but in reality, he gets discriminated against.

So, no 'diversity mantra' for France. UK, on the other hand, talks about diversity, and they have much better situation, ethnic relations wise.



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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Nov-2005 at 11:17
Originally posted by Maju

Originally posted by pikeshot1600

Oh, which trash websites would you recommend?



I've been reading the BBC mostly, the oficial media of the best US ally.

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Nov-2005 at 10:51
Originally posted by pikeshot1600

Oh, which trash websites would you recommend?



I've been reading the BBC mostly, the oficial media of the best US ally.

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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Nov-2005 at 08:06

Originally posted by Maju

Again saying nonsense, Pike?

Nothing to do with Islamism (as has been discussed before), not just anything about failure of the people to integrate: they are not accepted by most ethnic French, as some of the background articles posted in this topic show clearly. In fact it is over all a revolt against racism and impossibility of integration.

Try reading something instead of just assuming that everything that happens in the world is due to to some convenient Islamo-Masonic conspiracy or something.


Hey, my friend, you think everything that happens in the world is a U.S. conspiracy, so I am entitled to my own.

Oh, which trash websites would you recommend?



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  Quote Leonidas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Nov-2005 at 03:24
pikeshot1600 wrote:
"The strength of the Right is understandable due to the failures of the policies of the Left."
Failure of the left is much to do with the people as it does with the policies, so being Right doesnt mean that it naturally will succeed either. Im a proud swinging voter, I dont believe in dogmatic adhearance to any political theory. Sometimes you need a bit of left approach for some situations and a bit of the old right for others. At this moment, some real progressive thinking that has so far been lacking (from both sides from the looks of it) is what is really needed. This is situation that both sides could of fixed long ago. But definatly not this lock the doors where being overtaken by "scum" approach from the Right wingers.

BTW in Aus it was our version of the "left" that liberalised and opened up the economy so go figure on correct labelling.

"For many decades now, the immigration of those who have not assimilated, or who have not wanted to assimilate, into Franco-European culture has been setting the stage for what has recently transpired"
Assimilation goes both ways, accepting the immigrants for what they are helps them accept what is around them. Rascism either directly felt or implied is just as big a factor. This is a society either not able or atleast ready to accomidate more than one type of culture, and this is just as much their fault than the people they shut out.

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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Nov-2005 at 02:24
Again saying nonsense, Pike?

Nothing to do with Islamism (as has been discussed before), not just anything about failure of the people to integrate: they are not accepted by most ethnic French, as some of the background articles posted in this topic show clearly. In fact it is over all a revolt against racism and impossibility of integration.

Try reading something instead of just assuming that everything that happens in the world is due to to some convenient Islamo-Masonic conspiracy or something.



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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Nov-2005 at 19:49

Originally posted by Leonidas

well its the case of the lesser of the two evils i guess. I just hope atleast his rhetoric is partly to blame for this shift and there is a line that french arent comfortible with. The strength of the right is worrisome, but these things come in cycles, when the right dont delever or stop delivering  then they get chucked out and  the otherside get a turn agian.

The strength of the Right is understandable due to the failures of the policies of the Left.

For many decades now, the immigration of those who have not assimilated, or who have not wanted to assimilate, into Franco-European culture has been setting the stage for what has recently transpired.  The Politically Correct mantra of "diversity" has been enunciated again and again.  Both the disinterest in assimilation, and the lack of encouragement for same have inevitably led to segregation, separatist identity and ill feeling on both sides.

What did the isolated French elites think was going to happen?  That their manifestos would make it all better?  France, great as she has been in her past, has been in denial.  Not admitting that large scale immigration from the Mahgreb could fatefully challenge France and French culture has been most ill-advised.  Now that there has been a substantial and widespread consequence to these immigration policies, those elites, with their Sorbonne educations and their $2,000 suits, need to think harder and to earn their salaries.  What is to happen next?

Does France think opposition to and disapproval of the war in Iraq holds her harmless from radical Islamist actions?  I don't think she is.

 



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  Quote Exarchus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Nov-2005 at 18:27
Originally posted by ok ge

I guess that is a recognition of the government fault and the unhealthy growth of suburbs due to their policies.


About the unemployment, I was talking of France as a whole.
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  Quote ok ge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Nov-2005 at 16:55

Originally posted by Exarchus

They are the ones that made unemployment that high, growth that low and the weak economic context that made those surburbs devellop this way.

I guess that is a recognition of the government fault and the unhealthy growth of suburbs due to their policies.

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  Quote Exarchus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Nov-2005 at 15:04
The socialists are only pathetic clowns.  I used to vote for them and it was a terrible mistake. They were the ones who stayed the most in power those last decades. They are the ones that made unemployment that high, growth that low and the weak economic context that made those surburbs devellop this way.
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  Quote Leonidas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2005 at 06:18
well its the case of the lesser of the two evils i guess. I just hope atleast his rhetoric is partly to blame for this shift and there is a line that french arent comfortible with. The strength of the right is worrisome, but these things come in cycles, when the right dont delever or stop delivering  then they get chucked out and  the otherside get a turn agian.
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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2005 at 02:47
Originally posted by Leonidas

AS the smoke clears those that talked along the lines of Mr "scum" Sarkozy will see their knee jerk comments and overall attitudes are just narrow calls that ignore the bigger issues.

Update: Opinion polls are starting to favour the softer line (of the two) Villepin (52% vs 44%) source



Obviously the nice cop is always the favorite of the two... but they work in a team.

Anyhow, while I don't have right now any source, I recall yesterday reading that the opinion polls also showed a major increase of Le Pen and the sinking of Socialists, who inmersed in their own inner disputes have been as invisible as Chirac or more.

While obviously this is a major challenge for France and all Europe and I hope we have heard the alarm and will react constructively, the fact is that for many people of native background, whose xenophobic tendencies were already strong, this conflict seems only to mean an obscure danger that they may want to deal with in a fascist way.

Europe (and France specially) has already strong neo-fascist xenophobic political currents and this may even reinforce them, I fear. Meanwhile the class war component (dominant, no doubt) may remain hidden behind the curtain of ethnic conflict.

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  Quote Leonidas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2005 at 02:21
AS the smoke clears those that talked along the lines of Mr "scum" Sarkozy will see their knee jerk comments and overall attitudes are just narrow calls that ignore the bigger issues.

Update: Opinion polls are starting to favour the softer line (of the two) Villepin (52% vs 44%) source

Riots are a class act - and often they're the only alternative
"
By the end of last week it looked as though the fortnight of struggle between minority French youth and the police might actually have yielded some progress. Condemning the rioters is easy. They shot at the police, killed an innocent man, trashed businesses, rammed a car into a retirement home, and torched countless cars (given that 400 cars are burned on an average New Year's Eve in France, this was not quite as remarkable as some made out).
But shield your ears from the awful roaring waters for a moment and take a look at the ocean. Those who wondered what French youth had to gain by taking to the streets should ask what they had to lose. Unemployed, socially excluded, harassed by the police and condemned to poor housing, they live on estates that are essentially open prisons. Statistically invisible (it is against the law and republican principle to collect data based on race or ethnicity) and politically unrepresented (mainland France does not have a single non-white MP), their aim has been simply to get their plight acknowledged. And they succeeded."

Editorials in france (also sourced from the guardian) have said:
Le Figaro:"France is paying for its arrogance. In the eyes of the world, our famous model of social integration is going down the drain.."
L'Humanite:"Nicolas Sarkozy's arrogance evidently has no limits.....After having deliberately lit the fuse, he happily surveys the damage, and wants time to think about it.
Le Monde: "A country that regards itself as the birthplace of human rights and a model of social welfare has shown itself, in everyone's eyes, to be incapable of giving its young people the opportunities they deserve.."



Edited by Leonidas
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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Nov-2005 at 00:11
Some other comments/updates from local Basque press (http://gara.euskalherria.com/idatzia/20051114/art138631.php):

The EU tries to avoid the debate on the excluded ones despite the French explossion.

Fights increase in in Lyon, while Belgian police arrests half a hundred youngsters in Brussels.

The European Union looks cautiously to the uprising that started already more than two weeks but doesn't want to treat in depth a phenomenon that is common to many member states: the increasing social and economic exclusion and marginalization of wide layers of society. The uprising meanwhile has expanded from Paris, taken by the police, to neighbour states, particularly Belgium, with massive police interventions.

So far the header, now let's see some most interesting remarks:

...

Greek diary "Ta Nea" confirmed this weekend that "France is the capital of European failure in inmigration matters".

...

Jos Saramago, Nobel Prize of Literature, advses on the urgency of dealing with the situation of the excluded of Europe before uprisings of this sort extend to other countries of the Union.

The Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, made an appeal to watch to prevent the creation of inmigrant ghettoes that can exlode as in the French case.

...

Confronted to the image of France as "the country of art, fashion, culture and gastronomy", Japanese [media] can't hide their surprise. [Russian] sociologst Lev Godukov points out that "France is for Russians an ideal country, kind of a utopy of civilized country (...) We are in a state of shock". The press of the USA attacks without compassion "a country willing to give lessons to everyone".

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