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Cynthetiq · 07-06-2008, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

From the OP article:

The French are significantly more productive per capita, than Americans, they are more successful at controlling the dominance of the wealthy over every one else, than the bulk of the population in the US has been, and they live in a country more popular with tourists than we do....so it's hard not to admire them and give them credit where it is due....and to ask each other in the US, WTF is wrong with us? Why are we so lacking in employer and government provided benefits, in leisure time, and in financial and social security for our families, especially in time of unforseen and unplanned crisis, like sudden serious illness? Why have we so cooperatively ceded so much of what the average man in French enjoys, to the wealthiest and most powerful? Some of us even take satisfaction in the way things are here. Did I mention that the French enjoy balanced trade, while we borrow $800 billion per year to finance our imports?

While that may be the interest you have, the other posters in this thread do not seem to see the same connection.

If this is how you view the world, I guess it's a sad world since you cannot enjoy the simplest of things and understand nor appreciate them for their simplicity.

Sometimes a simple setting of wine and cheese is just wine and cheese, not a metaphor or apparent discussion of Appellation d’origine contrôlée and how the government regulation creates hindrences to the small farmer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

From the thread OP:

The entire Op article is political...from the disparity in the amount of vacation time, to this, also in the OP:

The French clearly enjoy superiority in quality of living....the article highlights that....to ignore it is what.....???? Is your point to ignore this superiority, and is ignoring it, not political, too? The article is correct.....something is wrong, but "the French behaving badly" is only one small dimension of what is wrong.

The French may be arrogant, and folks in the hospitality industry may be bothered by how they behave. Why is it not appropriate to react to and discuss the other, possibly even more interesting and significant information in the OP article? France is "the" destination, of all vacation destinations in the world, despite the impediment of a very strong currency (expensive) now in France. Why is that?

I tried to show reasons for that, by sharing an article describing the decline in foreign tourism to the US. The French enjoy the most vacation days, why is that.....what does it mean? The article mentions how few vacation days Americans, on average, get....and it states that Americans do not even "take" all of those many fewer days....why is that?

If it was to be a discussion on politics, then it would have been placed in the politics forum. It was placed in general discussion because well, it's a general discussion on the idea of the Ugly Tourist, not the Geopolitical Tourist or the Political Tourist Destinations.

"When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" -Abraham Maslow

Maybe you need a couple more tools.

I just have to ask, when someone talks to you about the weather do you reply with some sort of geopolitical rant about how the industiralized nations are creating acid rain and polluting the estuaries and watersheds? Or is is just as simple as, "It's rainy weather we're having lately."

I doubt that the French Muslims that live in the ghettos of Paris that rioted in 2005 and again in 2007 enjoy that same wealth and prosperity.

Ninth Nights of Riots NYtimes.com 2005 click to show

Quote:

View: Immigrant Rioting Flares in France for Ninth Night
Source: NYTimes
posted with the TFP thread generator

Immigrant Rioting Flares in France for Ninth Night
November 5, 2005
Immigrant Rioting Flares in France for Ninth Night
By CRAIG S. SMITH
AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France, Nov. 4 - France's worst urban violence in a decade exploded for a ninth night on Friday as bands of youths roamed the immigrant-heavy, working-class suburbs of Paris, setting fire to dozens of cars and buildings while the government struggled over the violence and the underlying frustrations fueling it.

The unrest, which has also spread to other parts of France with large North African and Arab populations, prompted the American and Russian governments to warn citizens visiting Paris to avoid its poor, outlying neighborhoods. France reduced train service to Charles de Gaulle Airport after two trains became targets of rioters earlier in the week.

A handicapped woman riding a bus in the Sevran suburb suffered burns over 20 percent of her body Thursday night after two youths doused the inside of the bus with a flammable liquid and set it on fire. Youths have also burned cars in Dijon, in the east, and in Marseille, in the south.

The violence has isolated the country's tough-talking, anticrime interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, whom some people blame for having worsened the situation with his blunt statements about "cleaning out" the "thugs" from those neighborhoods.

France has been grappling for years with growing unrest among its second- and third-generation immigrants, mostly North African Arabs, who have faced decades of high unemployment and marginalization. Critics say Mr. Sarkozy's confrontational approach has polarized the communities and the government.

"It's a game that has been started between the youth and Sarkozy," said a French-Algerian man wearing Chanel sunglasses outside Aulnay's mosque, in a converted warehouse. He would give his name only as Nabil. "Until he quits," he said, "it's not going to get better."

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met Friday afternoon with more than a dozen youths from troubled neighborhoods at his palatial offices in central Paris, hoping to find a solution to the unrest. He has promised to put in place an "action plan" before the end of the month to improve conditions in the country's poor neighborhoods.

France's foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned Thursday that France risked losing the integration battle in immigrant neighborhoods to radicalization of religious-based movements (diplomatic code for Islamic extremism).

For now, the violence seems to have been the work of unfocused teenagers and young adults without a clear political agenda.

"We see among the rioters kids of 13 to 15, who are swept along, who are encouraged to take all the risks, and the others, the ringleaders, who are used to creating trouble - they terrorize everyone, and don't want to stop," said Franck Cannarozzo, a deputy mayor of Aulnay. "Rather than playing on their Playstations, they attack the police."

The rioting began last week in Clichy-sous-Bois after two teenagers were electrocuted when they hid in an electrical substation from the police. Local youths, who believed the police had chased the boys into the enclosure, took to the streets, setting cars on fire in protest.

This came shortly after Mr. Sarkozy's populist anticrime campaign gathered speed when he declared a "war without mercy" on violence in the working-class suburbs, which were built up during the postwar period to move workers out of the city center and closer to the industrial zones that employed them.

Over the succeeding decades, North African and sub-Saharan immigrants replaced the working-class French who initially populated the neighborhoods. But jobs have dried up as the economy slowed - unemployment in some of the zones is as high as 30 percent - and the suburbs have become the French equivalent of America's inner cities.

While labor immigration tightened in the 1980's, illegal immigration and asylum seekers have kept many of the neighborhoods growing. In 2003, France became the world's leading destination for asylum seekers, surpassing the United States.

Immigration analysts say the current segregation is precursor to an inevitable reshaping of European societies forced to reopen their borders to increase the tax rolls and balance their aging, shrinking populations with immigrants.

Demographic pressures mean North African and sub-Saharan Africans will probably be at the forefront. By many estimates a majority of the 300 million Muslims already living along the Mediterranean's southern rim are under age 20.

Many in those neighborhoods say that they are being stigmatized by the interior minister's campaign and that the increased police presence results in harassment. Even before the deaths that set off the unrest last week, Mr. Sarkozy was pelted with stones and bottles during a highly publicized visit to the Parisian suburb of Argenteuil, where he had gone to outline a new plan to fight crime.

But Mr. Sarkozy has refused to back down, calling for "firmness and justice" in the face of the violence.

His stance has worsened a split in the governing Union for a Popular Majority party between his supporters and those of Mr. Villepin. Both men are vying to become the party's presidential candidate in 2007.

The opposition Socialists, deeply divided since earlier this year over a failed effort to ratify a European constitution, have been quick to capitalize on the unrest, accusing the governing party of neglecting the plight of the disenfranchised French-Arab and French-African youth.

On Thursday, the Interior Ministry released a report on the deaths that touched off the newest rioting, asserting that a third boy who survived the incident had said he and his friends were not being chased and were aware of the danger when they entered the substation enclosure. The report suggested that the boys were hiding from the police because one of those who died had a record of armed robbery and the other was part of a group that had broken into a construction site that evening.

But those points have been lost amid the ensuing violence.

"It's the police who are provoking us," said a bearded man in a white cap and North African robe in Aulnay who would give his name only as Mohamed. "They don't like foreigners."

He said he had moved to France from Algeria in 1971 and lived in the neighborhood for 30 years. All four of his children were born in France, and though he is unemployed, they have all found jobs.

"They say integrate, but I don't understand: I'm already French, what more do they want?" he said. "They want me to drink alcohol?"

Though France has a policy of officially ignoring ethnic differences in favor of French identity, its people have been slow to open their arms to newcomers who are told that they should enjoy the same rights.

"On paper we're all the same, but if your name is Mohamed, even with a good education, you can only find a job as a porter at the airport," said Kader, 23, who works at the airport. He complained that the immigrant suburbs had been neglected by the current government.

While the vast majority of the young people behind the nightly attacks are Muslim, experts and residents warned against seeing the violence through the prism of religion. The cultural divide between these second- and third-generation immigrants and the native French is deeper because they come from Muslim families, but to date the violence has had nothing to do with Islam.

But Islamic radicals recruit in France's troubled neighborhoods, and there is clearly a risk of deepening alienation and anger that could breed more extremism.

Manuel Valls, the mayor of Évry, where dozens of cars have been set afire, said the spreading unrest was more a game of copycats than coordinated action as young people vie to make the evening news. "It's a kind of hit parade by the neighborhoods," he said.

But Mr. Valls said the deeper symptoms of the neighborhoods must be addressed. "Each crisis is bigger, harsher and deeper, more revealing of the failure of our integration model," he said.

80+ Officers hurt in new French riots 2007 click to show

Quote:

View: Police and Protesters Clash Near Paris
Source: NYTimes
posted with the TFP thread generator

Police and Protesters Clash Near Paris
November 28, 2007
Police and Protesters Clash Near Paris
By KATRIN BENNHOLD

Violence in a Paris Suburb November 2007

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France, Nov. 27 — Dodging rocks and projectiles, the police lined the streets of this tense suburb Tuesday where angry youths have vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of two teenagers who died in a weekend collision with a police car.

Police union officials warned that the violence was escalating into urban guerrilla warfare, with shotguns aimed at officers — a rare sight in the last major outbreak of suburban unrest, in 2005.

More than 80 have been injured so far — four of them as a result of gunfire — and the rage was still simmering Tuesday afternoon. Inside the city hall of Villiers-le-Bel, a group of visiting mayors appealed for calm while police officers dodged rocks outside.

“We are sitting targets,” said Sophie Bar, a local police officer who stood guard outside. “They were throwing rocks at us and it was impossible to see where they came from. They just came raining over the roof.”

The violence was set off by the deaths of two teenagers on a motorbike who were killed in a crash with a police car Sunday night. The scene, with angry youths targeting the police mostly with firebombs, rocks and other projectiles, was reminiscent of three weeks of rioting in 2005.

But senior police officials warned that the violence was more intense this time.

“Things have changed since 2005,” said Joachim Masanet, secretary general of the police wing of the UNSA trade union. “We have crossed a red line. When these kids aim their guns at police officers, they want to kill them. They are no longer afraid to shoot a policeman. We are only on the second day since the accident, and already they are shooting guns at the police.”

Some young men stood by the charred timbers of the town’s police station, laughing and surveying the damage.

Cem, 18, of Turkish origin, declined to give his name because he feared police reprisals. But he and his friend Karim, of Algerian descent, said they both had participated in rioting over the past two days.

“That’s just the beginning,” Cem said. “This is a war. There is no mercy. We want two cops dead.”

Karim added: “The police brought this on themselves. They will regret it.”

Six of the officers hurt in the clashes Monday were in serious condition, according to Francis Debuire, a police union official. Four were wounded by gunfire, including one who lost an eye and another who suffered a shattered shoulder.

The biggest risk, the police say, is that the violence will spread. In 2005, unrest cascaded through more than 300 towns, leaving 10,000 cars burned and 4,700 people arrested.

As night fell in Villiers-le-Bel, the anxiety was evident. Strangers warned people to hide their cellphones because youths were snatching them on the street. People hurried to their homes, while some gathered in knots on street corners. Police helicopters circling public housing developments spotted stockpiles of rocks stacked along the roofs.

Naim Masoud, 39, a teaching assistant in Villiers-le-Bel, said that, in her school, even 8-year-old children talked about racism and discrimination by the police.

“It will take a lot more than riot police to cure this neighborhood,” she said. “These children feel like foreigners. It is inexcusable what they are doing, but the seeds are deep.”

Some of the fiercest clashes Monday took place near a bakery where one of the dead, a 16-year-old known only as Larami because his identity has not been made public, was an apprentice.

Habib Friaa, the owner of the bakery, said Larami had been highly regarded. He was stunned, he added, to learn Monday about his death.

“It’s quite something to say goodbye to somebody on Saturday and learn two days later that he died. We’re like a family here because we’re a small business,” Mr. Friaa said, noting that Larami “was not a delinquent. He was somebody who was learning our profession and he was serious.”