(Paris) 317 cars burned ahead of Bastille Day

[demoleft]

Source: afp / france24

AFP - French youths burned 317 cars and wounded 13 police officers overnight during the now traditional bout of street violence on the eve of the Bastille Day national holiday, police said Tuesday.

As French troops and their guests of honour from the Indian army made last minute preparations for the July 14 parade on the Champs Elysees in Paris, the suburbs of major cities were contemplating another clean-up operation.

...

Today, disaffected youths from bleak suburban housing projects around major cities use it to express their frustration with high unemployment rates and what they see as France's failure to integrate ethnic minorities.

Read more: http://www.france24.com/en/20090714-317-cars-burned-bastille-day-14-july-france-violence-vandalism

[sam sarrha]

1. there is lots of blame on both sides,,, i know a german lady that left germany because of the Muslim

men harassing her all the time. surrounding her on public bus staring and leering while making comments in their language and snickering.. because her arm were bare.. she said she was terrified to go anywhere.. i didn't ask where she had lived.. she said lots of her friends had left.

the Muslims there are often from north africa.

[Blue_Tires]

14. agreed

some of the French policies toward the Muslim population have not been the best, and to make things worse, the Muslims have not made the first effort to meet them halfway on some issues (especially some cultural ones)...the standoff is going to get worse as the muslim population increases...there could be a pretty bloody backlash from one side or the other in the future...

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. The kids burning cars are pretty assimilated

They resemble project kids from any American city more than they resemble folks from an culturally Islamic city. They're hip hop kids, essentially. The projects of Franc-Moisin and St. Denis looks much more like Bed-Stuy than they do Cairo or Damascus.

[surrealAmerican]

32. It's no coincidence that slums in different countries ...

... seem to generate the same sort of violence. They need to rethink how they house poor people, so do we.

[sam sarrha]

38. THEY WILL NEVER ASSIMILATE.. never compromise.. we are "Kufer" non-Muslim/FILTH, THERE ARE 2 WORLDS

IN ISLAM.. the world of Peace and Brotherhood, well known between the Sunni an the Shiite,,, and the World of War. that's where the Kufer/Infidel live.. historically this was the process and is discribed in the Koran.. until they win the war and make us Muslim. if you are Xing or jew you can live in a protected Ghetto for an extortion fee. sorta like Mafia Protection.. all others are told to become Muslim or they kill you. it's said 80,000,000 were put to the sword in India alone..

that how they spread islam in the old days,, and i havent heard about them inking over any of Allah's dictates in the Koran.. but they do provide a sanatized version of the Koran for the west.

[proteus_lives]

30. Way more sexual assault nowadays

Through Northern Europe. Apparently Muslim men attack women and consider it ok because they are dressed like "whores."

[sam sarrha]

35. in Islam there's just whats approved or Taboo in the Koran.. except when one is "Emulating" the

actions of the Prophet. then anything he did is OK to repeat.. because he is the most perfect person ever created. Allah, some people refer to Allah as Mohammed's Sock Puppet.,, anyway, Allah said that he created the entire universe list for Muhammad, so bossed is Muhammed..

when he lusted after Aisha his friends 6 year old daughter, the father hedged until Allah the sock puppet said to give her to Muhammad so as a last attempt to help her the father begged him to wait /to rape her/ 3 years.. which he didn't, a little more than 2 1/2. after consummating the "Marriage" all her hair fell out. he was a Warlord, arraigning nearly 80 raids/home invasions on small villages/ and ambushes where they killed all the men, took the children an women as slaves..and The sock puppet came up and Allah said it was ok to rape and impregnate slaves. allah also told a a follower to give him his wife.. he was a sex addict due to a tumor on the pituitary gland Acromegaly.. and Temporal lobe Epilepsy, producing vivid hallucinations and paranoia.. the paranoia is tightly woven into Islam.

its called 'Sunnah', amounts to..' what he did i can do as well and be blessed for it'.even if it wa immoral or illegal, inhumane or TABOO..SLAVING ..rape, murder, intimidation, EXTORTION assignation, theft.. Mo' was good at theft.. they had robbed the local Jewish tribes pass'n caravans, murdered them, SLAVED THEIR FAMILIES, and was going to kill em all till talked into banishing them.. unfortunately they were the only educated people around an provided the only jobs.. so Mo' had to turn Highwayman and Warlord to provide for his followers.. he established a Psychotic Narcissist Personality Cult, very very very similar to what Jim Jones did. the official story is that he went to Medina and solved all the problems of the feuding tribes by converting them.

there is a great book, Understanding Muhammad:a Psychobiology by hated and dispised.., ali Sina you can get it at http://www.faithfreedom.org you can get it as an eBook for ~$7 or soft cover.

[Rebubula]

2. WTF?

Did the Pistons win the NBA finals in Paris?

No...seriously, trashing the area that you live in while protesting your conditions seems a bit short sighted.

This sort of shit does not happen in the States because we own shotguns. Say what you want about private gun ownership, but these sort of shenanigans would not work in the US.

[2Design]

4. have you ever read usa papers - this happens in cities all the time

guns are not the answer - as we see from all the deaths from guns every night on the news

[Rebubula]

5. Please....

...show me when 300 cars have been burned in a single night ANYWHERE in this country in the last 30 years.

This sort of crap happens in France at least 2-3 times a year these days

[dipsydoodle]

9. 300 cars may not have been burned in Los Angels 1992

but there was considerable loss of life quite apart from C. US$ 1 billion of damage.

The Los Angeles Riots of 1992, also known as the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of African-American motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit. Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over the six days following the verdict. Widespread looting, assault, arson and murder occurred, and property damages topped roughly US$1 billion. Many of the crimes were racially motivated or perpetrated. In all, 53 people died during the riots and thousands more were injured.<1>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_riots_of_1992

I make that 17 years - not 30 years. The 300 cars are hardly likley to have a value anywhere near a billion dollars.

The 1965 Watts riots were almost as bad too.

[Zynx]

10. The comment was that this happens "all of the time".

That is simply not true, even with what you post.

[Rebubula]

13. OK...

...very good...two examples in a country of 300 millions over the last 30 years.

This shit happens in France every year or so and many times, several times a year and they only have 65 million people. The Riots in 2005 lasted for 11 days - 8900 cars damaged, 120 police and firefighters injured and affecting 274 towns. 2007 lasted for 7-8 days with 100 cars destroyed and 130 police injured.

There is no comparison to what happens here and what happens there.

[ohio2007]

34. car insurance rates must be laughable in old gay par-ree

cops don't even go into the highrise enclaves without expecting a trip to the hospital afterwards. The youth have rights to express themselves freely.

[Zynx]

7. Widespread burnings of cars? What city do you live in?

[Dappleganger]

20. It's the French way...

they like to set shit on fire to express frustration.

[mitchum]

36. Except for the fact that they are not...French

[redqueen]

25. It shows TPTB in France what they can expect...

should they dare to begin to fuck with the things the French love about their govnerment.

A little reminder for them. Costly, yes... but is it worth it? Apparently many French people think so.

[Historic NY]

3. Sounds like they need to start filling the Bastille again.

[izquierdista]

6. Vandalism

The stage that teenage boys go through when their testicles become large and their brains become small.

[Rebubula]

8. Sorry..

...you cannot write off this sort of violence on 'boys being boys'. That is pretty lame. Vandalism is breaking the window of the artroom at school or spraying painting naughty words on a wall. Burning cars and attacking police is violent and criminal.

Many of these 'teenage boys' are 20-25 years old.

[izquierdista]

15. Still teenage in the mind

It is "boys being boys" because they have not had their testosterone channeled in a better direction. Breaking windows and spray painting is also illegal in most places, although the penalty is less than burning cars and assaulting the police. And this anti-social behavior has its solution in exactly what they are grumbling about: jobs and a constructive way to occupy their time.

A sociological example from America is the funding of "midnight basketball" under Clinton, taken away by *. That program was directly tied to a drop in crime when it was instituted, only to see the crime return when * cut it. I've not spent enough time in France to know what kind of "midnight basketball" programs they have, but I have noticed a lot of teenage boys (and young men) loitering in the Muslim neighborhoods. Any "boys" who can riot on a given day, well known in advance, have too much time on their hands and not enough to do.

[hedgehog]

11. I wonder whose cars they burned. I mean, does someone use

the occasion to get revenge on the neighbor or what?

[hedgehog]

12. We learn from this story that there are no porches in Paris.

No couches were set on fire.

[dipsydoodle]

16. They've got loads of porches

in France. Nice one here if you like elaborate stuff :

[Libertas1776]

17. I just don't understand

why these European countries fail to really assimilate these people into their cultures. When millions of people came to the US, from all over Europe and Asia,they settled in the cities and formed civic organizations with others of the same nationality (and No, I am not talking about the mafia) and retained much of their heritage. They also, however, largely assimilated into "American" culture and were proud to call themselves Americani, Amerikaner, Американцы, Αμερικανοί,etc. and so forth.

In these European countries like France and Germany, these Middle Eastern and North African immigrants barely assimilate. They are forced to live in these ghettos in the outer arrondismonts of Paris and elsewhere in overcrowded projects like you would find in the South Bronx. Youths burning hundreds of cars is not just some teenage angst venting; that is a serious social undercurrent waiting to explode. Of course, maybe they learned the practice from the more affluent native Parisians who also burn cars, destroy property whenever they feel the need to "protest."

Maybe, as an Amercian, I see it as differently from a European perspective considering the majority of immigrants (mostly illegal) we get are Catholic, as opposed to Muslim.

[demoleft]

19. many a reason. colonialism is part of our heritage...

...and has left traces of resentment in african/asian people.

you are right - the failures in the big city plannings are now recognized by architects and engineers - and the architectural monsters in the popular neighborhoods are the material embodiment of psychological ghettoes.

and there are economic, social and cultural reasons entangled.
the religious ones you quote - see, Europe has always been a crossroad for different cultures and religions.
if there are religious tensions, they are instrumental, they give alibies to those who feel unrest for economic/social reasons probably.

i remember "Hate", the movie by M.Kassovitz. a nice portrait of the madness in such explosion of violence.

[Dappleganger]

21. One exchange student from Paris explained to us

that unless you are really french (not immigrant) it is very, very hard to get any employer to even consider you for a job. His family was originally from Algiers and they were muslim (although not practicing, just born into it). You could tell that his mindset about his future was very different from our other French students who were non-immigrant. He was pretty much hoping to get a job at the airport, while the others were planning their future in university and beyond. They lived right smack in the middle of the those areas that were so badly vandalised/burned not long ago. He was one of our best students we ever hosted, he fit right in because he was used to a larger family.

[PassingTimeHere]

22. European countries are much more secular

giving even more reason for many religious muslims to congregate in their own enclaves. So, even when the teens are a bit more secular, they still live in this culture that dislikes/disrespects the French culture.

And, of course, those feelings go both ways.

It should be easy to understand when you see how little respect the religious right has for the left and vice versa here in our country - but add their "relatively" recent immigration status, minority status, etc., and it's a powder keg waiting to explode.

[demoleft]

23. welcome to DU.

:hi:

[PassingTimeHere]

24. Thanks!

[Retrograde]

27. The US was founded on philosophy rather than ethnicity

We're taught from an early age that the US was founded on principle, and that it's a melting pot. OK, not strictly true, but it's the ideal we're supposed to be striving for. We're the Land of the Free, not the land of the Franks, or Germans, or whatever nation. Even at the founding, when most Americans still thought of themselves as English, there were significant settlements of Germans and remnants of Dutch colonies. There was even an attempt to get the French Canadians to join the Revolution (it failed, but it's the thought that counts).

I'll be the first to say the US isn't perfect, and some groups have had a harder time assimilating than others. And as the recent swimming pool scandal shows some people still don't want people not like them around. Maybe it's a good thing we don't have a long enough history to develop a rigid national identity.

Now, back to watching the Sotomayor hearings

[Xithras]

28. Americans tend to see a distinction between nationality and ethnicity. Most nations do not.

France, for example, was founded by Frankish ethnic groups who spoke a unique language and had a distinct history and cultural viewpoint. The nation of France came later, when the French people created a homeland to permit self-rule. To many people, after thousands of years of ethnic homogeny, it's difficult to simply accept waves of new people in as "French". Being French isn't just about living within the borders of the nation of France, but about being a part of an ethnic and cultural group with a long history. Accepting Muslims and North Africans into that culture means a fundamental change to the essence of what being French actually is, which many people are resistant to.

I'm not trying to pick on the French here, but simply illustrating a viewpoint. The same viewpoints and history can be found from Italy to Germany to Sweden...to Vietnam, India, and Iran. Old ethnic-based nations, nations that only exist because of a common ethnicity and culture, tend to be highly resistant to changes in their base demographics.

Nations like the United States, Canada, Australia, etc., tend to be far more open simply because we're a nation founded by immigration. To us, there is little connection between ethnicity and nationality. Hell, half of us hardly know what our ethnicities are anymore, or are so heavily mixed that it's largely irrelevant (I can personally trace ancestors to seven different parts of Europe). While the opinion certainly isn't universal, it makes us far more welcoming to immigrants, on whole, as a society.

[Gwendolyn]

31. Mix all that with immigrants who are also fiercely resistant to change and assimilation...

and voila, lots of stuff gets set on fire.

[mamaleah]

37. But what do you mean by assimilation?

Are you asking those immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East to give up their customs, religion, etc and adopt French lifestyles? Because European lifestyle tends to run against many of the teachings of Islam. Which then begs the question why move there if you don't dig the scene.....

And the only way to gain true acceptance in some European countries is to become just like your neighbors. So people fully selling themselves out doesn't sound that great either.

[Gwendolyn]

26. My French friends call them "carbeques."

[Lars39]

33. Sounds like they've got their own Cash for Clunkers program going. :^)

[proteus_lives]

29. Tradition.

Same as wine and cheese.

[sam sarrha]

39. there is a lot more going on there than can be told on CNN

[sam sarrha]

40. link to cause of the 06 riots >>Link

http://moderntribalist.blogspot.com/2006/01/frances-muslim-problem-will-only-get.html
came the infamous night of October 27, 2005, when two Muslim teens fled a police identity check in a banlieue—a run-down Paris suburb called Clichy-sous-Bois. They scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer, which electrocuted them on the spot. Youths, mostly unemployed Muslims, heard the news and—as everyone now knows—rampaged. They burned cars, vandalized buildings, and pelted police with stones and bottles