Trouble in France
 

Story below has me worried on how this will all eventually play out. This has been a long time coming and will not be easy to fix. At least the intensity of the riots seem to be abating.


http://www.washtimes.com/world/20051...0017-5115r.htm

This is all taking place in a run-down suburb outside Paris.

It will have no effect on tourists at all.

Let's hope it does not spread.

Interestingly, the unrest was triggered when two teens died by electrocution after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer. This happened when they boys thought they were being chased by police, said a friend of theirs. This then, started pitting other youths against the police who arrived on the scene.

The area, Clichy-sous-Bois, according to a news account has a substantial immigrant population and a history of social problems like housing.

I have witnessed two recent protests over housing related issues in the interior of Paris and they were peaceful, however Paris right now just can't handle the inflow of immigrants so the problem will become larger not smaller.

Tom

am i understanding this correctly? two boys scale a fence and enter property that is not theirs, and are electrocuted by touching a transformer, so there are riots against the police? how are the police responsible? what am i missing?

Some accounts say the boys were being chased by the police. Some say not.
Does anyone know if you pass through this place to get to Chantilly?

why were the boys being chased by the police (if they were) - and i still don't see how it is the fault of the police.

I think it has spread to six suburbs north of Paris.

Looks like the residents don't need much of an excuse to riot.

permission to paste this from expat news.
As I said before the area is not a place most would be visiting.


Chirac appeals for calm as suburban riots spread

PARIS, Nov 2 (AFP) - French president Jacques Chirac appealed for calm on Wednesday, warning of a dangerous escalation after riots that have plagued a poor suburb of Paris for almost a week spread to other areas near the capital.

"Tempers must calm down. The law must be applied in a spirit of dialogue and respect," Chirac was quoted as saying by a spokesman, in his first public comment since the violence first broke out last Thursday.

"A lack of dialogue and an escalation of disrespectful behaviour would lead to a dangerous situation," Chirac said, according to his spokesman Jean-François Copé.

Gangs of youths in towns around Paris clashed with police and torched cars and trash cans

overnight Tuesday, as the unrest that has plagued the poor, high-immigrant suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois since last Thursday spread to other areas.

Dozens of youths have been arrested since the trouble first erupted, sparked by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers whom locals believe were fleeing police.

The violence has gone on unabated despite a pledge by interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy to crack down on the rioters.

In all, more than 80 people have been arrested and two dozen police hurt since the start of the riots last week.

Prime minister Dominique de Villepin delayed a trip to Canada Wednesday to attend a parliamentary session in which he called the violence "extremely serious."

Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy also cancelled a trip next week to Pakistan and Afghanistan to deal with the worsening situation.

The rampages were triggered by the accidental electrocution of two youths, aged 15 and 17, who had scaled an electrical relay station's walls to escape a police identity check in the street.

Since then, tensions -- punctuated by the nighttime confrontations -- have run high in the low-rent, high-immigrant suburbs that surround Paris.

The firing of a police teargas grenade against a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois during clashes late Sunday also sparked rage in the suburb's large Muslim community.

The grievances have been further fuelled by hardline law-and-order policies implemented by Sarkozy, who is also leader of France's ruling UMP party.

The interior minister has made no secret of his ambition to try to succeed Chirac in 2007 presidential elections.

Just one week before the riots exploded, he promised a "war without mercy" on violence and petty crime in the suburbs.

The opposition Socialist Party criticised Sarkozy's rhetoric, saying: "When an interior minister doesn't hesitate to use insulting terms, branding as 'rabble' communities which have the misfortune to be fragile and wanting to turn water-cannon on them, it is the image of the country that is tarnished."

Observers saw the riots as a sign of the growing divisions in French society -- Muslim immigration, poverty, declining education standards in downtrodden areas and joblessness.

The left-leaning newspaper Libération said successive governments had "broken their noses on the reality of the ghettos, often minimised and often forgotten in their priorities."

But in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper Wednesday, Sarkozy defended his tough policies by saying that some poor suburbs had come under "the rule of gangs, of drugs, of traffickers" and that his measures had brought down crime by eight per cent a year.

"The feeling of exclusion, illegal immigration and the high level of unemployment creates considerable problems," he said, asserting that "firmness, but also justice" was needed.

Suburbs such as Clichy-sous-Bois suffer from unemployment rates over twice the national average, which is already relatively high at around 10 percent.

Tuesday night's violence included less of the direct clashes between youths and police seen on previous nights in Clichy-sous-Bois, police and municipal sources said.

But while that suburb was relatively calm under the presence of several hundred police, outbreaks of trouble in other areas overwhelmed officers.

Cars were torched and police reported sporadic incidents involving groups of youths in Val-d'Oise to the north of the capital and Seine-et-Marne to the southeast with lesser violence reported in Yvelines to the west.

Copyright AFP

Subject: French news

Time for Chirac to request the services of Cyrus Vance, whom when Lyndon Johnson sent him to Detroit on the 3rd day to quell the riots, ordered all police and guardsmen to lay down their arms and arrest no one for anything. That, of course, triggered an escalation from which Detroit, once the 3rd largest US city and now the 17th, never recovered.

this I find amazing:
<<<<<<<<<<<<&l t;
[French Interior Minister Nicolas] Sarkozy says that violence in French suburbs is a daily fact of life.

Since the start of the year, 9,000 police cars have been stoned and, each night, 20 to 40 cars are torched, Sarkozy said in an interview last week with the newspaper Le Monde.
>>>>>>>>>>>&gt ;

yep things are just fine over there.
And the media is loathe to even mention the muslim component of these riots, now in their 6th day.

tom, I never knew that. And 10 years later James E. Carter rewarded him with handling US foreign policy. Now it makes sense.

I don't understand why I see nothing on the news? A woman exiting a bus was torched and in the hospital with 20% burns, This happened in that poor neighborhood with so many unemployed and paris now in deep prejudices.
The Days of Josephine Baker are sadly gone.

Why don't you have a look at BBC?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/