Paris riots

Update 11-04-05: I have much more here.

Still more added 11-07-05.
___________________________________

CNN.com reports:

Youths hurled rocks and set fire to cars in the northeastern Clichy-sous-Bois suburb of the French capital [that would be Paris - Mike], where many immigrants and poor families live in high-rise housing estates notorious for youth violence.

... The violence began four days ago among residents of Clichy-sous-Bois over the deaths of two teenagers believed to be of African origin who were electrocuted while fleeing police.

Sixteen people were injured in violence on Friday and hundreds of residents marched on Saturday to appeal for calm and pay their respects to the dead teenagers.

According to the CNN story, the latest round of violence broke out after a police tear gas canister was fired into the Clichy mosque.

I have blogged previously about the fact that rioting generally occurs when one group of people feel marginalized.  Their collective anger, which has usually been fermenting for some time, boils over and manifests itself in acts of violence, sometimes toward other people, and sometimes toward symbols of the marginalizing culture: automobiles, businesses, etc.

So let's be clear on this point -- it doesn't just happen in America.  And it doesn't just involve "post traumatic slavery disorder," or whatever syndrome supposedly affects black Americans today.

This story also illustrates the serious problem that nations like France have with Muslim immigration.  We think we have problems with Mexicans crossing our borders, but Europe doesn't have it much better.  (Actually they have it much worse. - Mike)  This is partly due to the fact that 20th century intellectuals so thoroughly discredited and deconstructed modern Christian European culture, that post-modern secular European "culture-lite" doesn't have any way to respond to a foreign, deeply religious, and almost (in some ways) primitive culture when it implants itself within their midst.

Events like this are worth keeping an eye on, even when everyone else wants to talk about Roe v. Wade.
_______________________________________

Added:  Thanks to Gateway Pundit for the link to this post.

If you'd like to read a good series of posts on the subject of illegal Mexican immigration from a Christian viewpoint, I would recommend this excellent series of articles at AnotherThink.  Here is a link into Part 3.

More Today (11-01-05):

Breitbart.com reports yet another night of violence.  And the report sheds more light on the incident that touched off the rioting:

Tensions have been running high between police and gangs of youths in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of the capital, since the accidental death by electrocution last Thursday of two teenagers.

Many of the youths targeting police were angry at the deaths of two youths, aged 15 and 19, who were electrocuted after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer.

The local public prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the boys thought they were being chased by police, but authorities denied that was the case.

The launching of a tear gas grenade at a mosque late Sunday threatened to further escalate the troubles.

Police fired more tear gas overnight Monday to disperse around 100 youths involved in a stand-off with some 50 officers near the mosque.

And here are some troubling facts about the area:

Of the 28,000-plus residents of Clichy-sous-Bois, 50 percent of the population is under 25 and one-quarter of the breadwinners in each household have no job, according to the town's website.

Like many working-class districts on the capital's northern rim, it has a heavy concentration of immigrants including first and second generation Muslims from France's former colonies.

Its "cities", the French euphemism for subsidized low-income housing developments, are prey to the crime and social trouble fuelled by unemployment rates more than double the national level of around 10 percent.

Hmmm ... low income, high male unemployment, high crime rates -- where have we seen those things before?  Is George W. Bush secretly the president of France, too?

Of course it is interesting that we are talking about post-Christian, enlightened, socialist FRANCE.  I didn't think that those kinds of things were supposed to happen in nations where "progressives" are in charge.  Silly me.  More interesting still is the response of French authorities:

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- who has implemented hardline urban security policies in his bid to be a conservative candidate in France's 2007 presidential elections -- visited the administrative headquarters responsible for the suburb.

"Everyone has to understand that my determination is absolute" in confronting the violence, he told journalists.

Sarkozy, who is also leader of France's ruling UMP party, vowed to wage a "war without mercy" on crime in the Paris suburbs just a week before the rampages.

The minister said Clichy-sous-Bois and the surrounding area would be the first to try out his latest initiative: cameras on police patrol cars to capture suspects' actions. (emphasis added)

Uh-oh -- ACLU, better get to Paris ASAP.  Looks like it could be Selma all over again.

Still more at Gateway Pundit.

Comments

[Richard]

Unfortunate choice of words "Europe doesn't have it much better". The illegal immigrants streaming accross our southern border are predominanlty Christian, decent, hard-working people. I'd say we had it much better.

[Michelle]

They should shoot anyone caught looting, torching, vandalizing or attaching. This was instituted in New Orleans to restore order, shoot with the intent to kill. There must be a strong deterent, otherwise these people who have not contributed to the development of the country will continue to destroy it. They have no affiliation or loyalty to something they are not a part of. Probably should shut down the borders and not let them in. Let them build thier own success if they are incapable of being part of another.