Paris riots

Are the rioters a mix of N.African and W.African?

Those who live there say that when they go for a job, as soon as they give their name as "Mamadou" and say they live in Clichy, they are immediately told that the vacancy has been taken. When high numbers of unemployed young men live together, the outcome is often violence. A young woman, Maratt Sabek, said that black and Arabic women do not face nearly as much discrimination in the job market as their brothers. But what will the violence achieve? Many Clichy residents see a bleak future among the tower blocks "It's catastrophic - we're the ones who suffer," said one young woman, who was too afraid to give her name. The cars and shops which are burnt belong to those who have managed to find a job and save up despite all the obstacles they face. One woman who is visiting friends and relations in Clichy said she was astonished to see the flames and hear the police sirens, saying it reminded her of home - Algeria, where a decade-long civil war has just about finished. This may be an exaggeration but it is a comparison which would still shock many French people who have never seen the near-third world deprivation in their midst.

Ziwyana Cherif: "I don't think it was racism, just a mistake by the police which they should admit.

"But I do see racism every day. People's faces change as soon as they see a black or Arab face. The death of those boys was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Mamadou Nyang, 19

This sweatshirt says 'Dead - for nothing'. It's in memory of the dead boys, Bouna and Zyed.

I left school two years ago but have never had a job. As soon as I say my name and where I live, they tell me the vacancy has gone.

I am happy to do any job, except be a policeman. I hate the police. As soon as they see blacks or Arabs, they just try and cause trouble.

Ahmed Belmokhtar, taxi driver

My parents came from Algeria and could not read or write, so they could only do menial jobs.

But the kids now don't want to suffer like their parents and grandparents did. The state is being tough at the moment but later it will have to listen.

In the long-term, these riots will force the government to act. Otherwise, the next round of violence will be even worse.

The police are very rude - they don't understand our problems.

Maratt Sabek

We just want to be recognised as human beings, instead of being seen as Arabs or blacks.

We don't all want new mosques - that's only important for a few people, yet that's what the state does.

Burning cars does not help anyone. It just gives a bad impression - we are not animals.

Bilal, 29, civil servant

Even in the civil service, we are victimised. We have to work twice as hard as white French people. That's the problem with France - institutional racism.

I don't approve of the violence but it's the only way of sounding the alarm. We demand equality of opportunity.

The police did nothing to stop those kids running 1,000 metres to their deaths at an electricity sub-station. If they want peace, we need justice. Respect must be mutual.

Mehmet Altun, 15

The police come and hassle us all the time. They ask us for our papers 10 times a day.

They treat us like delinquents - especially [Interior Minister Nicolas] Sarkozy. That's not the answer.

It would be good to have youth clubs and other places to go - then there would be less trouble.

It's not good to burn cars but that's one way of getting attention, so people can come and solve our problems.

These people, North African or not, are rioting. If this doesn�t stop somebody who is innocent will be killed. Some old lady was almost BURNED to death. Shoot to kill if they're rioting. Simple. It will quell everything. At this point it isn�t an extreme measure. I don�t see why some man, who is driving home in his Lexus, should be subjected to being pulled out of his car, beaten to within an inch of his life and have his car burned.

I frankly value the property being destroyed over those rioters. If somebody tries to pull me from me car because there is a riot going on and they have some message to get out, I'd blow their head off with my shot gun (if i had one). I'd rather blow some damn rioters away than allow them to pull me from my car and destroy it.

As I said, this roit would have been over if it was in America.

Actually it would stop it. There are countless examples of this in America. At the very least they could send the army in.

HELL YES. Can you give me a good reason why I should just step aside and allow my property to be vandalized? and how am I a murderer if I am defending my self and my propery?

Should I also allow rioters to pull me from my car and beat me?

Yeah it isnt;.....I can tell....

• BBC: French riots ragedespite warning.
  
• Aljazeera: Unrest spreads into French capital.
  

Boy, do you ever have a lot of respect for human life. Do you really think shooting the protesters would solve the problem? It would probably only make it worse. As for the comparison with America, am I the only one who remembers the race riots in Los Angeles in 1992?

http://www.emergency.com/la-riots.htm

I find quite a few parallels between the two: both sparked by an incident with the police resulting in death, both with racial overtones, but mostly due to social factors such as poverty and unemployment.

One thing which is not often mentioned is that the French police fired tear gas into a mosque during Ramadan prayers. Imagine firing tear gas into a church during christmas...

There Muslims are like 8-9% of France's population, but there is not even one non-white French person in their parliament... They have much higher unemployment rates than the French, while they are being told that everyone is equal in France. They live in poor ghettos. It is no wonder all that exploded when that fascist s.o.b. Sarkozy has taken one step too far.

Everyone in France has been aware of this coming, just watch the movie La Haine.

From indymedia.org:

I think the official line was 'the gas canisters indeed belong to the police but the police didn't fire them'. If you buy into that. Maybe it is more convincing to say Santa Claus fired them...