The mainstream media and government officials continue to avoid any mention of the Islamic identity of the French rioters. But in this Telegraph story, "France divided as the flames creep ever closer to central Paris" (thanks to JE), there are some crucial details indicating that those who have identified the riots as jihadist activity are closer to right than those who speak only of "marauding youths."
But - and this is the crucial difference between the different generations of rioters - most of those living in the French ghettoes are Muslims and have grown up during a period of Islamic radicalisation. Many of the youths hurling petrol bombs on Parisian estates look up to a slightly older group of mosque stalwarts. These men are capable of being forces for both good and mischief; there have been examples from the past fortnight of situations calmed, but also of attackers acting under their direction, so that Muslim-owned businesses, a halal butcher's shop and a kebab joint, for example, are spared, while a bank branch and symbols of another France are targeted.Intelligence officials have already spoken of the involvement of the more sinister of such figures in the recruitment of young French Muslims to fight the American-led coalition in Iraq. Several have been killed, others are missing. The gravest fear for French ministers is that the trouble of the past 10 days has been orchestrated by Islamists bent on exploiting the grievances of impressionable youths. France's attempts to integrate its large Muslim population have failed; in the name of a secular state in which everyone, theoretically, is equal, there is not even a dependable estimate as to the true numbers - they are widely assumed to be as high as 10 per cent, or six million people, but the official census is not allowed to distinguish between ethnic groups.
Interested was recommending The Telegraph as the newpaper of choice in the UK over the weekend.
The graphic alone of this article impressed me. The bleu, blanc, rouge of libertie, egalite, fraternite, burning beneath the crescent moon in the night sky.
Ryan
Any comment on this development?
People living in France have come into contact with these people quite often and it is a most uncomfortable experience, from being barged to the side of the road by a group of Muslim teenagers, to being caught up in the middle of a confrontation between police and Muslims on a metro station. Another time I was about to be mugged by 5 Muslims for my portable on the train, but the police re-acting to an earlier mugging tackled them before they made their attempt.
When driving to the airport on one of my business trips I often see the smoke from burning cars. My understanding was the infidel cars were targetted.
I have cut back my movements late at night into the city centre where I live, much to my wife's disgust, but why take the risk.
A friend when going through two different Muslim employee's poor work performance at different times was given the throat cut gesture and called a racist, only from Muslims, never from the myriad of different nationalities employed by his company. And they ask why they are unemployed?
Muslim owned shops are not being burnt, I expected that, I also expected them to start attacking areas in which the French live, that is now happening. It will continue as they sense weakness, no area will want to stay out of it, they can scare the French government into giving them money and resources to keep them quiet.
The only thing I can't work out is what the government is going to do, I have no confidence in the Government, where Sarkozy president then I would, but not Chirac and Villepin. The only good thing about this government is that it is not the socialists who would be so much worse at dealing with this.
Expect it to get much worse... even after de Villiepins statement on TF1 tonight.
Here's an interesting perspective from Daniel Pipes Weblog
Death to France?
January 3, 2004
Death to France? Death to Chirac the Zionist? When thousands of Muslim worshippers gathered for the Friday communal prayers in Tehran on Jan. 2, they heard a stem-winder of a sermon by Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, reports Agence France-Presse. In the course of it, Janati denounced France's President Jacques Chirac for his endorsement on Dec. 17 of a ban against "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools, including the hijab, large crucifixes, and skullcaps. Janati called on Muslim countries to "threaten France with canceling contracts and to reconsider their relations with France," promising them that, Muslims need only roar, "and the French would back off."
"Death to France!" came the response.
This follows an incident on Dec. 29 when protestors at the French Embassy in Tehran shouted not just "Death to France!" but also "Death to Chirac the Zionist!"
These imprecations prompt many thoughts, but one will suffice: Given the French government's friendliness to Tehran and its hostility to Israel, this hostile reaction points to the possibility that the condition of Muslims living in Western states might in the future define Muslim attitudes more than that state's foreign policy. (January 3, 2004)
Jan. 23, 2004 update: Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer in Arabic at Bar-Ilan University, points out in an e-mail he circulated that ‘Ikrima Sa‘id Sabri, the Palestinian Authority's mufti, declared in his Friday sermon today that "French laws banning the hijab constitute a war against Islam as a religion." This amounts to quite an escalation in rhetoric; will others pick it up?
Jan. 27, 2004 update: The Saudi religious establishment has weighed in against the French hijab ban, considering this issue to be within its purview – which has interesing implications. The grand mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, announced in Mecca that "Interfering in the affairs of Muslims regarding the headscarf is an infringement on the human rights that they [the French] say they are defending." He derided the French for being more willing to defend the rights of nudists than women wanting to wear the headscarf.
Feb. 25, 2004 update: As the French government approaches a legal ban on hijabs in schools and universities, a voice attributed to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top aide, aired yesterday on Al-`Arabiya, the Arabic television station. In it, the supposed Zawahiri interprets the forthcoming French law in an ominous way: "The decision of the French president to issue a law to prevent Muslim girls from covering their heads in schools is another example of the Crusader's malice, which Westerners have against Muslims." Those sound like fighting words to me.
Aug. 29, 2004 update: They were. On Aug. 19, two French journalists in Iraq – Christian Chesnot of Radio France and Georges Malbrunot of Le Figaro – disappeared and today the "Islamic Army in Iraq" indicated that they would be executed unless the French government revokes the ban on hijabs in state schools and universities, scheduled to go into effect on Sept. 2, when la rentrée (school opening) takes place across France. As the kidnappers put it via a statement read out on Al-Jazeera television, the law banning religious apparel in public schools is "an aggression on the Islamic religion and personal freedoms."
In a commentary on these developments, Agence France-Presse reports that although "kidnappings of journalists and other foreigners have become common in Iraq, … the journalists' employers and Sunni Muslim scholars had earlier expressed faith that if they had been kidnapped they would be safe because France had staunchly opposed the US-led war against Iraq." As noted eight months ago in this entry, it does appear that "the condition of Muslims living in Western states might in the future define Muslim attitudes more than that state's foreign policy."
Aug. 30, 2004 update: "The plight of two French journalists abducted by Islamic extremists in Iraq dominated French public life today," reports the talented Sebastian Rotella in the Los Angeles Times. He then explains the confusion among the country's appeasement theorists:
The hostage ordeal has hit France hard. It is a gloomy rebuttal of the theory held by some - though not by most French government officials or those knowledgeable about Islam - that France's anti-war, pro-Arab policies had inoculated the country against such aggressions.
No less interesting is how the hostage crisis is affecting the politics of the hijab ban, about to go into effect in a few days:
And the militants' demand that France scuttle its new law banning Islamic headscarves in public schools has suddenly altered a debate over the impending debut of the ban this week. French Muslims closed ranks in support of the hostages and muted their criticism of the law, a sign that only the most fervent pro-veil radicals would risk being associated with the Iraqi hostage-takers, who are suspected in the recent killing of an Italian journalist.
Over in Iraq, interim prime minister Iyad Allawi used the occasion, via an interview in Le Monde, to make a point that the French might now take to heart:
Nous avons toujours dit que la guerre en Irak opposait les forces du mal au peuple irakien et aux nations civilisées. C'est une guerre rude. Vous ne pouvez pas vous contenter de demi-mesures. La France ne sera pas épargnée.
We have always said that in the war in Iraq, the forces of evil confront the Iraqi people and civilized nations. It's a primitive war. You can't get away with half-measures. France will not be spared.
Nov. 6, 2005 update: As Muslim youth riot, burn cars and buildings across France, and declare war on the interior minister, Nicholas Sarkozy, Muslim governments jump into the act. Yesterday, the official Libyan news agency, JANA, quoted Muammar Qaddafi expressing to Jacques Chirac in a telephone conversation his "disquiet" about the developments in France and his offer to help deal with them. No less noteworthy is Chirac's assuring Qaddafi that everything is "under control" (when it plainly is not).
The spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hamid Reza Assefi, issued a statement today also expressing "disquiet" and adding more menacingly: "We hope that the French government will respect the rights of its people and respond to its demands non-violently. We will not accept the violation of human rights in this country." He added that "the French government and police should treat their minorities with respect."
http://www.Daniel Pipes.org
If this is not a muslim issue why is Iran threatening France?
Daffersd,
"was given the throat cut gesture"
WTF?
In my opinion this is where France's problems begin. If your countrymen allow this sort of behaviour from these thugs, than of course it's only going to get worse. Your friend should have immediately gone on the offensive, got up in these coward's faces and told them to bring it on, right here, right now, and then proceed to knock the living crap out of them.
The problem with your emasculated society is that you've let in barbarians who have no intention of chopping their own balls off. (Hell, who can blame them). So France and the rest of Europe for that matter, have only a couple of options available if they wish to preserve their culture and heritage.
Continuing with my most un PC metaphor, Europe must:
1) Grow some balls. FIGHT back against their barbarian culture and earn their respect. Let them know it's either your way or troublemakers and their families will be thrown out of the country.
2) Cut their balls off for them. Forced assimilation by closing Arabic speaking schools, strict monitoring of mosques, and a host of other measures that severely limit their capacity to practice their incompatable culture.
Sorry to say, either way is not going to be pretty. But I know you guys can do it. Your rugby team just did a good All Black imitation on the weekend and kicked kangaroo butt.
Time now, to defend your homeland.
Viva Le France!
William The Crusader: Your comments are unhelpful and childish. Intimidation and violence are difficult to handle in any civilized society, whether in France or elsewhere. The civilized person is often at a loss as to how to deal with a person who doesn't follow the rules of society. You make it sound like the offended individual can instantly make national policy. "Oh, Mr. Muslim, you dare threaten me?! Why, I am going to close down your child's school and force you wife to rip of her veil!" NOT.
Former liberal wf, you said:
"William The Crusader: Your comments are unhelpful and childish. Itimidation and violence are difficult to handle in any civilized society, whether in France or elsewhere".
What should the French government do? Hold hands with the hate preaching Imams(the same Imams who tell the Muslims to "kill little white Frenchmen)and sing Cumbaya? Violence is the only language those people seem to understand. Already, a woman was set on fire, three policemen were wounded by gunfire and a man died from being savagely beaten as he tried to extinguish a trash can fire.
you also said:
"The civilized person is often at a loss as to how to deal with a person who doesn't follow the rules of society".
Not true. A civilized person has a moral right to defend life, property and freedom against those who want to dissolve the rules of society and replace it with subjugation. There is talk in france as we speak about passing a law to make it a crime(falling under the anti-rascist laws)to criticize Islam. It might already be in effect, I'm not sure.
lastly, you said:
"You make it sound like the offended individual can instantly make national policy".
With 5 million+ muslims(and the number continues to grow)now living in France, they make up a voting bloc to influence national policy. Just a few days ago Muslims were calling for their own "Andalusia" in France. You know it's bad when last month, de Villepin publicly offered money for "French citizens" to have babies. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know he was referring to non-Muslim citizens because the non-Muslim French population is decreasing rapidly. With 5 million+ Muslims living in France, their voting power could establish Sharia Law within parts of France within a few years.
The only way to stop the Muslim expansion is to close the door on liberal immigration policies, closing down muslim schoolhouses(forcing them to intergrate within French schools) and cutting off welfare benefits. It's the only solution.
No fl,
Someone threatening my very life is not simply “ offending” me, but assaulting me. And taking action to defend oneself is a fundamental right in any civilization.
And I'm suggesting that by taking an attitude of ignoring these assaults on a one to one (micro) level emboldens the thugs to think they can get away with their thuggery on a societal (macro) level.
Conversely, I'm suggesting that by adopting a culture of standing up for oneself enables a society to "grow some balls" and gives it the confidence and willpower to deal with the longer-term problems of their social misfits.
My comments may seem "unhelpful and childish" to you because of the confrontational manner I'm advocating, but it is too late for Europe to do anything but what I've suggested if they wish to preserve their culture and way of life. I do have Sociology and Criminal Justice degrees so I know a little of what I write about in this regards and don't need lecturing from you. But I forgive you seeing that you are a recovering liberal.
Chirac the Zionist, eh? Yep, the guy who sought to provide Saddam with nukes is a Zionist. Really.
The "youths" are turning the tables on the French, using skills that the Frenched honed during WWII. It's time to get down to business as they did with the Nazis or kiss their civilization and their lives goodbye.
"Muslim-owned businesses"? but I though all poor Muslims were locked in dark ghettoes by evil Frenchman, only let out to slave away in coal mines for pennies a day!
/Sacasm off