France riots?

[ObieX]

I wasn't exactly sure what section to put this in, and since the answer to this question would probably end up being political, i picked this one.

So here's my question: What is all this rioting about? I can make out 2 possible reasons so far, but they don't seem sufficient to explain this reaction.

Reason 1: Two kids, running from cops (why?), went into a power station to hide. They end up getting electricuted.

Reason 2: Those who seem to b rioting are the poor immigrants of France. Africans who immigrated and ended up with high levels of unemployment and face lots of racism.

Ok well. reason #1 is what suppsoedly set off the riots. While the deaths of young adults may be tragic, it's hardly worth a riot? I doubt the vast majority of the rioting people have any idea who these people are, or why they would be running from the cops.If they were running from the cops, they must have done somethnig wrong, correct? Isn't it hte job of the police to catch "criminals"? Hardly a reason to riot.

And as for reason #2, riots are not what fixes this type of problem. If it's racism you're worried about, rioting will only confirm the feelings of the racists, wouldn't it? Smashing and burning shops and businesses that could possibly hire you if you applied doesn't seem to be a good way to counter unemployment..?

Thre HAS to be another, REAL, reason for all of this. But i just can't see it. Granted, I'm no expert on the social aspects of France by any measure of the word, but events like these usually have some kind of real cause behind them. This just seems to be a swarm of overly juvenile and ignorant morons.


If anyone can hellp shed some light on this situation for me, it would be much appreciated.

[host]

Originally Posted by ObieX

....Thre HAS to be another, REAL, reason for all of this. But i just can't see it. Granted, I'm no expert on the social aspects of France by any measure of the word, but events like these usually have some kind of real cause behind them. This just seems to be a swarm of overly juvenile and ignorant morons.

If anyone can hellp shed some light on this situation for me, it would be much appreciated.

It's the usual problem in former colonial powers of Europe. Even when immigrants seem to have a higher standard of living and more opportunity for employment in western countries where they resettle, it seems that loss of cultural identity, a perception of racism and discrimination directed at them, and comparisons of the distribution of wealth, power and opportunity skewed to the ethnic nationals vs. only traces to the immigrants, along with a police presence that has few immigrants in it's ranks, and you get volatility.

They have challenges assimilating, they live in a concentrated ghetto population and they reach a mindset where they feel that they have little to lose by resorting to violent protest. In the case of the French, IMO, they overvalue their "gift" of citizenship to their immigrant population. The religious divide and the contemporary, worldwide movement towards Islamic fundamentalist influenced militancy, and tensions rise....

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/...ss/france.php#
'We're French,' but not 'real' French
By Katrin Bennhold International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2005

.......Like Walid, whose parents came to France from southern Algeria in the 1960s and still have Algerian nationality, many young second- and third-generation immigrants here feel neither North African nor French.

They have spent their whole life in France, but for their whole life they have felt trapped in a cultural no man's land: their experience in 21st-century France clashes with the traditions and history of their parents' countries - mostly former French colonies in Africa. Formal citizenship in France aside, they feel their North African names and their skin color still firmly set them apart.

According to Mamadou, 24, who like most youths here declined to give his last name for fear, he said, of being pursued by the police, everyday reality in the suburbs belies the noble idea of equality before the law.

"We are French, but we also feel like foreigners compared to the real French," said Mamadou, whose father came to France from Mali decades ago and married his mother, a French woman.

Who, according to him, are the "real" French?

The answer comes without hesitation and to vigorous nodding by a groups of his friends: "Those with white skin and blue eyes."

Tales of being treated as "second-class" citizens abound. Many youths feel targeted by a predominantly white police force that conducts regular checks in their neighborhood. As Walid put it bitterly: "If you are black or Arab, chances are you have something to hide."

Leaving the afternoon prayer at a makeshift outdoor mosque, Hocine, 23, a soft-spoken young man of Algerian descent in religious attire, said he was resigned to never having his culture and his religion truly accepted in France.

"How many times have I gone into Paris and have been shouted at 'Go home!" he said. "Home is here," he added. "But it doesn't really feel like home."

Beyond racism and daily routines of hostility with the police, one complaint frequently repeated in interviews in several of the smoldering suburbs north of Paris is that none of the youths in question feel they are given a real chance to leave the ghetto.

After quitting school early, Mamadou recently found a job in a supermarket in La Courneuve, one of the suburbs at the heart of the recent rioting, stacking boxes.

But it took two years, scores of applications and several humiliating moments of being sent away after interviewers caught a glimpse of his African features.

Near a tall wall of graffiti in La Courneuve, telling the government and police to stay away, a group of young men pass their Friday afternoon talking, laughing and occasionally shouting at passers-by.

They all of Arab or African origin and they are all either unemployed or working in low-skilled maintenance jobs.

"We are all janitors here," said one young man, who appeared to be the leader of the group. "It's our destiny."

The man, who would only identify himself as Awax, said looking Arab in France was more than just having darker skin: It was also a ticket to a societal pigeon hole from which there was no escape.

"Looking Arab means you either spend all day at the mosque or you are criminal scum," he said. "People generalize all the time, but you can't. Nobody talks about white French people as Christian."

In few places is the separation of religion and state as strict as it is in France, where all conspicuous religious garb like the Muslim head scarf is banned from schools.

The law has intermittently prompted some Muslim groups to complain, and last year many cases of Muslim girls refusing to take their scarves off made headlines.

While sociologists and immigration specialists say that the religiousness of immigrants is often exaggerated, they say it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"Many of these guys are no more Muslim than other French people are practicing Christian," said Christophe Bertossi at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris.

"But if they are given no other identity the Muslim label risks becoming the thing they fall back on."

[aKula]

A similar thing happened in Australia recently when an aboriginal child died while cycling from police (IIRC he wasn't involved in any crime, just fled the police). The subsequent riots took place in both cases because of the feeling in the community of not having the oppurtunities the rest of the country has. In that are also feelings of being the victims of racism and wider intolerance especially as I think many such people are exposed to racist comments in the streets. I think there is a feeling of the deaths occuring due to the unfair targeting of ethnic minorities by the police force.

High unemployment and a feeling of having no oppurtunity to better their situation, causes disdain for the authorities. Such an event triggers the anger and disdain felt to be expressed in a violent form. The French interior minister has not handled the situation well by making comments that exasperate the "us vs them" mentality which fuels even more anger.

[Pip]

There were a number of arsons in the immigrant quarters of Paris during late summer/autumn that put everyone there on the edge I think. So it had been brewing for a while, and the death of the two boys kind of set off the spark (Bad choice of words, I know.) Not even the Paris correspondant of my morning paper can explain excatly what's going on. He was trying to interview a group of young boys in the rioting quarters when they set fire to him -- twice! When he finally ran away from them, he dropped his wallet. One of the boys ran after him and gave it back, untouched. It's just too weird.

[Rekna]

actually these riots piss me off a tun. A muslim friend of mine and I were discussing them and I was saying how I think these riots have no merrit at all. The 2 boys got themselves killed. It is no ones fault but their own. If the police were not chasing them it is their fault for running into the power station. If the police were chasing them it is their fault for running (especially into a power station).

Typically riots occur after some sort of injustice. There was no injustice in this situation and it pisses me off beyond belief. I think people are rioting for reasons other than 1). 1). is just an excuses. Unfortunatly i don't know enough about the french culture or politics to figure out why this is. I think the french should just call in the military to restore peace. Come in forcefully with rubber bullets or something, arrest everyone who is rioting and throw them in jail for 20 years.

[pan6467]

Riots happen when the people feel they have no voice anymore and are pissed off at society for reasons they feel are real (even if they aren't). Or because of society's overreaction to a protest.

Like prison riots are usually because the inmates feel they aren't being heard and are grossly mistreated.

The Rodney King riots were because blacks in LA felt they weren't being heard and there was a gross injustice done.

A small group then may protest and the police come and overreact, then more people support the protest and violence erupts and wham you have a full scale riot.

And in some cases, you see someone creating a riot by ignititing fears and hatred in order to advance their own agendas.

[Furry]

I'm living in one of the northern towns hit by rioting and I can honestly say that there's a lot of tension here. There's quite literally a "wrong side of the tracks" aspect to this place, even though there have only been two incidents here so far (both arson) on top of the demonstrations.

The French African community here isn't that well integrated, and that's what people around here are toting as the cause for all over this - over and above anything else. There's a demographic difference between the land over the metro line and the quarters close to the centre of town. You just don't see people of Morrocan/Algerian extraction in the town centre, unless they're rich.

In my 2 months (so far) here I've noticed that beggars are mostly from that community. I pass by a high-density housing block close to the invisible demarcation line and there are a lot of bored teenagers around this neighborhood who play truant. Things seem to have quietened down around here since then but I can't help but notice that the majority opinion that French Africans are badly viewed here because of the integration "problem" is generally true. As to whose fault it is - let's just say that I'm not willing to venture an opinion just yet. As always the truth will lie between two opposite poles.

[ObieX]

mm.. yea integration is a job for BOTH sides. If one side wont give the other side jobs that needs to change. If the other side feels the need to live in large groups and isolate themselves, they shouldn't complain about non-integration. *shrugs*

Anyway, thanks for clearing this up. The length of the riot is what got my attention.

[roachboy]

i have not been able to follow this as closely as i would like--too busy---but i have been getting asked about it anyway---to situate these actions/riots, i put together some contexts that might help think about this stuff:

1. the situation created by the french policies designed to address labour shortages, particularly unskilled labour, from the 1920s through the mid 1970s. the situation of many, largely north african "suburban" areas since the 1970s, that s since the collapse of the labour market that initially drew folk there--the lack of infrastructure, the lack of opportunities, the sense of non-integration, of being stranded, isolated, thrown away.
i think that one aspect of these policies was streamlined citizenship processes. so in a kind o ideal typical way, the kids or grandkids of the generation that came to france to work, and who became sitizens, are now french citizens but they are not given any rational sense of being french. but they are not really north african at this point either--in that they would in all probability be completely lost if they went to algeria or morocco. in general, what explains this?
2. politically: the debates around the nature of frenchness--this is a very long term matter, but since the 1980s it appears that the political organization that has really trafficked in this matter--and which has tried to define frenchness/france in basically racist ways--is the front national. from the phase of debate about the law passed last summer banning the wearing of "religious garb" in public schools, it has appeared that a signficant aspect of chirac's politics have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the fn. it is the fn that has articulated and advanced a concpeiton of france as white and catholic, in danger of invasion by islam....you get parallel racist nonsense in the states, but it is generally most virulent along other lines....but since 9/11/2001, the present context has shifted closer to that shaped by the fn. i have thought bush similar to le pen from the outset, but that is another matter.
3. hisory of repression: the history of the crs as a reactionary organization--often arbitrary and brutal--the electrocutions that triggered these actions initially was but another element in the grotesque saga of the crs as agent of repression in the poorer banlieuex in particular. this is not the first series of riots set off by the brutality of the crs. it will not be the last.
4. economic factors: the diminishing employment prospects for the kids of these north african families in the suburbs. the obvious lack of prospects for anything different (lack of adequate schools and other civic infrastructure in some of the poorer suburbs)
5. the idiotic discourse of the "war on terror" as it cuts across all the above.

you can find outlines of these contexts, and much more detailed information about them/their mode of interacting, in the work on "fundamentalism" done by gilles kepel, for example. but any longer-term history of the north african population in france, or of french immigration policies, will give you the same material.


if you hold these various contexts in your head and set them in motion around these actions, i think you can start to situate them.

sarkozy's statements of last week, in which he referred to the kids who are involved in these actions as "scum" probably explains the persistence and generalization of these clashes more than any other single thing.

you could see in this an expression of alienation and so cuold read them as the inverse--some kind of cry for recognition as the washington post phrased it today--but i think that is a bit pollyanna, given that the mechanisms of exclusion in some of these areas would seem to preclude this.

all this from a distance and so could be off in its detail--other comments welcome.

[powerclown]

The French Intifada, in full bloom.
It appears Paris is on course to become the third most holiest site in the Islamic World.

I wonder if any of the hundreds of cars set on fire, or the razed police stations, or the molotov cocktail factories created by the rioting African Muslims were ignited by the very gasoline procured through those shady UN petroleum deals between France & Saddam Hussein? Oh, the irony.

The Fall of France

The Brussles Journal
Paul Belien
Sat, 2005-11-05 13:41


If Nicolas Sarkozy had been allowed to have his way, he could have saved France. Last Summer the outspoken minister of the Interior was France’s most popular politician with his promise to restore the law of the Republic in the various virtually self-ruling immigrant areas surrounding the major French cities.

These areas, which some compare to the “millet” system of the former Ottoman Empire, where each religious community (millet) conducted its own social and cultural life in its own neighbourhoods, exist not only in France, but also in Muslim neighbourhoods in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and other countries.

The French establishment led by the corrupt President Jacques Chirac and his Prime Minister, the aristocrat Dominique de Villepin, an appointee who has never held an elected office, begrudged Sarkozy his popularity. The minister was distrusted. He was an outsider, a self-made man who had made it to the top without the support of relations and cronies, by hard work and his no-nonsense approach.

Sarkozy (whose real surname is Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa) is a second generation immigrant, the son of a Hungarian refugee and a Greek mother. “I like the frame of mind of those who need to build everything because nothing was given to them,” he said a few months ago about his upbringing.

The experience of his youth has made Sarkozy not only the most pro-American French politician, but also virtually the only one who understands what second generation immigrants really need if they want to build a future.

More important than the so-called “social benefits” – the government alms provided by welfare politicians like Chirac, Villepin and their predecessors – is the provision of law and order. This guarantees that those who create wealth do not lose it to thugs who extort and rob and burn down their properties.

Sarkozy’s decision to send the police back to the suburbs which had been abandoned by previous governments was resented by the “youths” who now rule there. That this would lead to riots was inevitable. Sarkozy knew it, and so did Chirac, Villepin and the others. Sarkozy intended to crack down hard on the rioters. If the French government had sent in the army last week, it would have been responding to the thugs in a language they understand: force. And the riots would long have ceased.

What happened instead was that Sarkozy’s “colleagues” in government used the riots as an excuse to turn on the “immigrant” in their own midst. Paris is well worth a mass, King Henri IV of France once said. Bringing down Nicolas Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa is well worth a riot, King Chirac must have thought. Contrary to the normal French policy in dealing with trouble makers, the authorities decided to use a soft approach. Chirac and his designated crown prince Villepin blamed Sarkozy’s “disrespectful rhetoric” – such as calling thugs thugs – for having detonated the explosive situation in the suburbs. Dominique de Villepin stepped in and took over the task of restoring calm from Sarkozy. While the latter was told to shut up and keep a low profile, Villepin began a “dialogue” with the rioters. As a result the riots have spilled over from Paris to other French cities. Do not be surprised if this French epidemic soon crosses France’s borders into the North African areas surrounding cities in Belgium and the Netherlands.

As for Sarkozy, the best thing this immigrant son can do is to resign and make a bid for the 2007 presidential elections as an outsider. His popularity with the ordinary Frenchmen has not been tarnished yet. But this could soon change if he remains a member of a Villepin government which is clearly unwilling to abolish the current “millet” system. French patriots do not like to see their country disintegrate into a cluster of self-governing city-states, some of which are Sharia republics.

[roachboy]

gee powerclown, thanks for proving the point i made above concerning the parallels between american conservative and european neofascist viewpoints on this kind of situation. belien is a far right columnist based in belgium--a range of his work is easy enough to find, and a look should put the above column in perspective--though i would have a harder time putting powerclowns bizarre exultation over having worked out an interpretation of what is going on in france that only even begins to make sense from a front national-style viewpoint.
birds of a feather i suppose.

[irateplatypus]

Ahh... the Sarkozy/Chirac gap widens. What a shame, they used to be so cute together.

Sarkozy will play this smart... he's already tried to take a hard-line, but not so hard to commit himself completely. Villepin will hang himself with half-measures and Chirac will go down w/him while Sarkozy will come away smelling like roses. My, how the tables have turned. The apprentice has become the master.

Anyway, enough of French politics and my attempts to suppress schadenfreude. Like many of you, I feel like I'm not getting the whole story from the AP dispatches. Check out the AP's pool of photographs... not a single snapshot of the riots and/or rioters in progress. The press's aversion to the word "muslim" in any negative context is showing.

[alansmithee]

For a religion of peace, those muslims seem awful willing to resort to violence, don't they?

Also, from what I can see (riots, bombings, etc.) this situation is starting to seem like a quagmire. I think it's time for France to pull out. Chiracco should take their imperialistic policies and shove them!

[powerclown]

Originally Posted by roachboy

belien is a far right columnist based in belgium...

Gee roachboy, that's good to know.
I'll take the 'forthright, spin-free neofascist' over the 'rambling, ivory tower liberal' everytime.

[martinguerre]

replace "france" with "LA" and "immigration issues" with "rodney king verdict" and it's deja vu all over again.

it's civil unrest...not the end of western civilization. hopefully, this turns in to a real wakeup call for france to improve conditions in the suburbs....they have a history of unrest similar to some of the poorer urban centers in America. Bad housing, lack of jobs...it's a powderkeg...just like ours.

[Marvelous Marv]

Originally Posted by martinguerre

replace "france" with "LA" and "immigration issues" with "rodney king verdict" and it's deja vu all over again.

it's civil unrest...not the end of western civilization. hopefully, this turns in to a real wakeup call for france to improve conditions in the suburbs....they have a history of unrest similar to some of the poorer urban centers in America. Bad housing, lack of jobs...it's a powderkeg...just like ours.

Or maybe the IMMIGRANTS could improve conditions in their enclaves.

[aKula]

Originally Posted by alansmithee

For a religion of peace, those muslims seem awful willing to resort to violence, don't they?

Also, from what I can see (riots, bombings, etc.) this situation is starting to seem like a quagmire. I think it's time for France to pull out. Chiracco should take their imperialistic policies and shove them!

There are strong parrallels with this case and what happened in Sydney, even though most aboriginal people aren't muslim. The only aspect of the rioters being Muslim which relates to the riots are that it contributes to the division between them and mainstream French society.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3491299.stm

Sydney riots over Aborigine death
Sydney police inspect a burnt out car
A number of people have been arrested
More than 40 police officers have been injured in Sydney in a riot sparked by the death of an Aboriginal teenager.

Angry youths torched a railway station and pelted police with petrol bombs and lumps of concrete in the mainly Aborigine district of Redfern.

Thomas Hickey, 17, died after he was impaled on a metal fence when he fell off his bike. Police deny claims he was being chased by officers at the time.

There are to be three inquiries into the boy's death and the riot.

Four people have been arrested and charged over the riot, which lasted for nine hours. Police say they expect more arrests to follow.

The BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney says this was the worst night of violence in Sydney for years, and will be a setback for race relations.

New South Wales State Premier Bob Carr said his government would launch inquiries into the incident to establish how the teenager died and whether there was any police involvement.


REDFERN RIOTS

Riots in pictures
The three inquiries will be carried out by the state coroner, the police service and a public affairs watchdog.

Local anger

The riot broke out on Sunday night and continued into the early hours of Monday.

Police reinforcements wearing riot gear were drafted in from across Sydney to quell the violence.

Eight of the injured officers had to go to hospital.

"At this stage one officer was knocked out by a brick that was thrown through the air and a number of others have got broken limbs, legs," Assistant Commissioner Bob Waites told reporters.

At the height of the riots, some 100 people were said to have taken to the streets.

"They burnt out one vehicle and they in fact were throwing Molotov cocktails both at police and at Redfern railway station during the course of the riot," said Mr Waites.

Thomas Hickey's mother said her son was being pursued by police when he fell of his bike and became impaled on a metal fence.

The allegation is strongly denied by the police.

A local resident, identified only as Donna, told ABC radio that people were angry because they believed the police were responsible for the teenager's death.

"He was murdered. We've been down to look at the spot and everything and there's no sign, they cleaned it up that quick," she said.

One local community leader accused the police of harassing people who live in a rundown area of housing known as The Block.

"You could interview every Aboriginal kid down there that comes from The Block, and the majority will tell you to your face... that they've all been bashed by the police," said Lyle Munro.

The area is notorious for drug dealing, with heroin being sold openly in a local park.

[Mojo_PeiPei]

This is going to be a quagmire for France and Europe for generations to come. The population demographics are going to shift even further to Muslims/Arabic as time goes on, that will pose anymore problems as far as I can see.

Also this whole incident and drives home further to me that France is a nation of pussies, at least so far as this is the 10th day of the rioting and it has only gotten worse.

[martinguerre]

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

Or maybe the IMMIGRANTS could improve conditions in their enclaves.

It doesn't even have to be a question of moral obligation, but common sense. The problems in the suburbs of Paris have been brewing for a long time. "La Haine" famously brought these issues to light over a decade ago. France can keep waiting for things to get better, or they can take action to provide more incentive for these populations to find sucess.

Waiting the last decade brought them this. What do you think waiting some more is going to do?

[stevo]

So how long until france surrenders? The french police still have orders not to shoot. Violence has spread to 300 towns, is inside the city limits of paris, yet the french are too scared to do anything drastic to stop it. I say france will be overthrown in one week.

Originally Posted by martinguerre

replace "france" with "LA" and "immigration issues" with "rodney king verdict" and it's deja vu all over again.

it's civil unrest...not the end of western civilization. hopefully, this turns in to a real wakeup call for france to improve conditions in the suburbs....they have a history of unrest similar to some of the poorer urban centers in America. Bad housing, lack of jobs...it's a powderkeg...just like ours.

Well, I guess the high taxes and socialist policies just aren't working. Maybe they should increase the minimum wage?

[martinguerre]

france isn't some socialist paradise. Maybe if you're native born it's pretty good, but there are serious problems with racism. Why i drew the LA riots connection...it isn't even so much that there are no jobs in France, but that that there aren't many in that community.

Any prediction that the nation falls to shit is quite premature. They do have an army you know, and whatever trash you want to talk...if it gets *that* bad, i have to think they will get authorized to use force.

[stevo]

Originally Posted by martinguerre

They do have an army you know, and whatever trash you want to talk...if it gets *that* bad, i have to think they will get authorized to use force.

Let's hope.

France gives more money to non-working citizens than any county except for the nordic states. Perhaps if france hadn't made such promises to immigrants they wouldn't be in this predicament.

I just find it interesting that the same policies that are promoted on this board to end poverty and promote equality are the same policies the french have implemented, but its done nothing but give them a 10% unemployment rate and a pissed off African/Arab immigrant population.

There is obviously a big racist problem in france. but if the french didn't want these immigrants there, they shouldn't vote in politicians who are so willing to be a welfare state. Its funny, because it sounds good and makes you feel good to talk about giving to the immigrants, but when they come to your country you don't want them there.

The problem lies somewhere between the french citizens' racism fighting the immigrants attempt to assimilate and the immigrants not wanting to assimilate all that much.

[Leto]

Originally Posted by powerclown

Gee roachboy, that's good to know.
I'll take the 'forthright, spin-free neofascist' over the 'rambling, ivory tower liberal' everytime.

why?

why not take them both, mix, shake and stir, and come to your own conclusions. Rather than kowtowing to an '-ist' of some sort.

[powerclown]

Originally Posted by Leto

why not take them both, mix, shake and stir, and come to your own conclusions. Rather than kowtowing to an '-ist' of some sort.

Have you ever poured ketchup into a chocolate milkshake?
Bleh, right?

[powerclown]

BREAKING:

France to Let Rioters Govern Themselves

by Scott Ott
(2005-11-03) — After seven nights of riots by youth in predominantly-Muslim sections of Paris, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (who is a man) announced today that police would pull out of areas where dozens of cars burn each night to “let the freedom-fighting insurgents govern themselves.”

“Just like the United States should not force democracy upon Muslims in Iraq,” said Mr. de Villepin, “we should not impose our own provincial thinking about the so-called ‘rule of law’ on Muslim immigrants who have established a homeland in Paris. We’re withdrawing our occupation forces immediately.”

The Prime Minister, who, when he was Foreign Minister, vigorously opposed the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, today enthusiastically endorsed self-determination for “these peaceful religious people in our midst.”

- !

[martinguerre]

The problem lies somewhere between the french citizens' racism fighting the immigrants attempt to assimilate and the immigrants not wanting to assimilate all that much.

Agreed. Too much carrot in some senses, way too much stick in others.

[roachboy]

The problem lies somewhere between the french citizens' racism fighting the immigrants attempt to assimilate and the immigrants not wanting to assimilate all that much.

i dont think this is accurate--the situation from which all the trouble that is now happening flows is the mode of spatial segregation france chose--which was a state decision--it was a state decision to construct banlieux in the outer reaches of the paris region, encourage almost entirely immigrant folk to live there and then to abandon these places once the labor market collapsed--starting in the middle 1970s.
the spatial arrangment functions as a kind of natural horizon for kids born within it.
in terms of segregation, these cites are on a par with the worst types of american spatial discrimination---in terms of infrastructure collapse, many of tehse places are kind of like east palo alto ca. was a few years ago. they get almost no support from the french state in terms of infrastructure---i dont know what the policy logic was that shaped this set of decisions, nor do i understand what the folk who implemented them imagined would happen to those who lived there in the longer run--maybe it was kinda lilke the bushwar in iraq in that there was no long term thinking at all, and the results are, here and there, disaster.
i dont see what sense it makes to pretend that these space arrangements do not exist, nor do i see what sense it makes to skip over it as a factor and move straight to speculating about motive--seems to me that you will not understand anything by doing that.

[flstf]

It seems like these riots may be the result of economic conditions and/or a sense of hopelessness but I fear it could turn into much more if it spreads to other European countries. There are probably religious leaders who will take advantage of the situation. Maybe the cold weather will shut the whole thing down before it gets too bad this year.

[roachboy]

here are a few of the many articles out there that link the riots to the longer-term problems created by french urban policy, which i was talking about in the previous post. i dont see how you can even start to get a coherent view of these riots without taking this into account:

In Paris suburbs, anger won't cool
By Katrin Bennhold International Herald Tribune

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2005

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France Talk to people outside the Bilal mosque in this rundown suburb north of Paris and they will tell you what has gone wrong: why rioters for the past week have confronted the police in overnight bursts of anger in the streets, torching cars, hurling rocks and even firing bullets in the worst civil disobedience in France in more than a decade.

Beyond the poverty and despair of life in the shoddy immigrant communities ringing the shining French capital, local Muslims say, there is no one left with any sway over the rioting youths. Parents, the police and the government have all lost touch, they say.

On Thursday, after rioters disregarded an appeal for calm by President Jacques Chirac, firing bullets at the police for the first time as the rioting spread for a seventh consecutive night, the government held emergency meetings throughout the day. But despite Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's vow that "law and order will have the last word," the police were bracing for more violence as night fell.

In Clichy-sous-Bois on Thursday afternoon, outside the entrance of the Bilal mosque - a converted warehouse where a tear-gas grenade landed on Sunday, stoking fury against the police - celebrations of the end of the monthlong Ramadan fast were overshadowed by the widening disturbances.

Opinions about the riots among people gathered at the mosque differed, but everyone from the deputy imam to local council workers and men leaving the midday prayer agreed that the trouble has been compounded by a vacuum of moral authority.

"If you want authority over these kids you need their respect - but all the normal channels of authority lost their respect a long time ago," said Ali Aouad, 42, who has lived in this northeastern town for two decades. "They feel neglected by the government, and the police just provoke them."

Even the government's minister of equal opportunity, Azouz Begag, who himself grew up in an immigrant household outside Lyon, carries no authority here, residents said.

"Where has he been? He is representative of nothing and nobody," said a young man of Algerian descent, who identified himself only as H2B. "He has done nothing for us and now he is trying to compensate by criticizing Sarkozy," the French interior minister, "but it's too late."

The crisis has penetrated the top level of the French government, where Nicolas Sarkozy and Villepin, the two most senior ministers, are sparring over how to deal with the violence and have both come under fire for failing to bring the violence under control.

The trouble erupted in Clichy-sous-Bois on Oct. 27 after two teenagers, apparently thinking they were being pursued by the police, fled and were electrocuted when they hid in an electrical transformer. The disturbances have since spread to at least 20 neighboring towns.

In the early hours of Thursday, rioters torched 315 cars, burned a car dealership and a local supermarket, and attacked two commuter trains, the police said. Nine people were wounded.

But as appeals for calm by the government fell on deaf ears and a heavy police presence across the northern suburbs only appeared to provoke more violence, a number of local organizations seem to have quietly taken on the task of cooling tempers.

Abderamane Bouhout, president of the cultural organization that manages Bilal mosque, mobilized small groups of young believers during recent rioting to go between the rioters and the police and urge the disaffected youths to express their anger in nonviolent ways.

Aouad, who witnessed one such intervention on Monday night not far from the mosque, said it was impressively effective. "It worked," he said. "They went right between the two sides and a lot of the kids listened to them. The damage the next day was a lot less serious than the previous nights."

At the local city hall, Lamya Monkachi says the role of religious personalities along with that of young locals recruited from the suburbs to mediate for the city authorities has been key to reducing the violence in Clichy-sous-Bois in the past two days, even as it intensified in other suburbs. "What helped us here in Clichy to calm nerves was that we work a lot with people who know the local youths and speak their language," she said.

There are eight Muslim organizations in Clichy alone that have been mobilized to participate in starting a dialogue with the rioters. In addition, a group of youths, working closely with city hall, have formed an association in response to the riots last week called Beyond Words. Their representatives - young North African men dressed in white T-shirts with the names of the two dead teenagers printed on the back and the words "Dead for Nothing" on the front - have campaigned for peaceful dialogue.

But, says Marilou Jampolsky of SOS Racisme, a non-governmental organization fighting discrimination, the current government has made such informal mediation efforts more difficult by cutting back public funding for them.

"The number of neighborhood organizations that organize sports, help with school work and just generally check up on these kids has significantly declined since this government came to power" in 2002, she said. SOS Racisme, which also has local branches in suburbs, has lost half its money, she said.

One of the most prominent young mediators is Samir Mihi, 28, who has become an informal spokesman for the various groups that have stepped in to calm the violence and mediated between the rioters and the government.

According to Mihi, who grew up in Clichy, the key ingredient for restoring peace in this and other suburbs is to build relationships with the local youths and give them the feeling that their concerns are being heard.

"If they listen to us it is because we give them what they most want: respect," said Mihi, who organizes sports activities for teenagers at city hall. "If you respect them, they respect you."

One reason politicians fail to make themselves heard in the suburbs is that successive governments have failed to tackle disproportionately high unemployment and crime rates in the suburban housing projects, leaving youth with few opportunities. That feeling of exclusion is exacerbated by a lack of political representatives of North African origin and other role models, Mihi said.

The lack of moral authority is perhaps most flagrant with the police, locals said, because the interaction between officers and residents is often reduced to frequent and random identity checks that are perceived to be humiliating in the mainly North African communities in the suburbs.

At the local market, Muhammad, 24, who declined to give his last name, said such checks sometimes happen even outside his own apartment. He recounted how the police stopped him as he was walking home the night before.

"They grabbed me and touched my hood to see if it was hot or sweaty," he said, describing what he called a regular practice. "If you're caught with a sweaty hood, it means you've been running and that you have probably committed a crime."

Meanwhile, the parents of the teenagers in question lack authority because poverty has often made family life more difficult, says Jampolsky. Neither do they share the quest for identity so prevalent among the younger generation.

source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/...ess/france.php

France's city policy in tatters
By Henri Astier
BBC News website


As rioting by disaffected youths has spread across France, officials have been accused of long-term neglect of the country's impoverished suburbs.

But over the past three decades, French governments of all colours have implemented an array of initiatives aimed at tackling widely documented problems.

The first plan for the suburbs, focusing on better housing, was launched in 1977.

After rioting near Lyon in 1981, the new Socialist government pioneered a large-scale "policy for the city" aimed at ending social exclusion.

In the 1980s, hundreds of billions of francs were spent on regenerating housing estates, as well as extra funding for schools and youth associations in the suburbs.

The next decade saw no let-up in government activity. In 1996, tax-free zones were set up, providing incentives for companies to create jobs in the suburbs.

Last year, Social Affairs Minister Jean-Louis Borloo initiated a Plan for Social Cohesion aimed at tackling unemployment, discrimination and housing problems.

What went wrong?

The problem, it seems, is not one of neglect - but one of ineffectual action.

We have the same inequalities as in the mid-1980s
Sebastian Roche
Sociologist

According to many French analysts, the worst wave of urban violence for many decades is a damning indictment of government initiatives.

"If you do not accept that these policies have failed, what would it take to recognise failure?" sociologist Sebastian Roche said in an interview with the BBC News website.

The law and order situation in the suburbs, he says, is much worse than it was two decades ago - even when there is no rioting.

Neither has the economic plight of local youths improved: "We have the same inequalities as in the mid-1980s."

As Mr Roche sees it, one reason for the failure is that urban policies have focused too much on "urban regeneration".

In the late 1990s, for instance, the then Socialist-led government launched initiatives like 50 Great City Projects and 30 Urban Renewal Operations.

Since 2002, the centre-right government has continued with this approach, demolishing high-rise blocks with gusto and investing heavily in new buildings.

The bricks-and-mortar approach is all very well, Mr Roche says, but the underlying causes of the crisis, such as bad schools, have not seriously been dealt with.

Patronage

Another problem, he says, is that the money has been not been focused on the worst areas.

GOVERNMENT ACTIVITY
1977: First plan for the suburbs
1981: "Policy for the city" initiated
1988: National Council for Cities, Inter-ministerial Commission for Cities of Urban Social Development set up
1989: High Council for Integration set up
1990: "Ministry for the City" created
1996: Tax-free zones in the suburbs
2004: Plan for Social Cohesion

Instead, it has been spread too thinly and used for patronage purposes.

"What typically happens is that mayors of big cities go to the minister and ask: 'What about me?'" Mr Roche says.

Francis Goddard, a professor at the University of Marne-La-Vallee, argues that that the current centre-right government has made problems worse by putting a halt to the neighbourhood policing launched by the previous administration.

"They have neglected grass-roots work," he told the BBC News website.

Mr Roche agrees, saying that trust between residents in the suburbs and the authorities has broken down as a result.

"French police are too remote," he says. "People in poor suburbs fear them."

But some analysts argue that the problems faced by the suburbs are so severe that it is unfair to criticise France's long-standing "policy for the city".

"If we had not had this policy in place, maybe the riots would have happened 15 years ago," says Fabien Jobard, a sociologist with the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS).

Structural problems

Furthermore, the crisis of the suburbs may reflect structural problems in France rather than misguided action by any individual government.

Mr Roche points out that to improve education, you must allow local schools to choose their teachers and set higher wages.

But this is unthinkable in the country's heavily centralised education system.

France is also characterised by a high degree of social protection and many labour-market rigidities.

This helps those already in work but prevents the creation of low-skill, entry-level jobs.

The result is 25% unemployment among the young - and zero job prospects for the poorly-educated youths of the ghetto

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4415018.stm

unlike the above, which tries to outline a complex analysis, it seem that far right coverage prefers the reinforcement of racism amongst its readership to anything even beginning to approach a coherent description. if such "coverage" is your thing, then fine, but dont pretend that there is anything going on in it beyond the reinforcement of a racist disposition.

[powerclown]

Originally Posted by flstf

There are probably religious leaders who will take advantage of the situation.

This is exactly the spark that Europe (and ultimately the rest of the World) should fear the most, and struggle to address. It's not that large Muslim populations in Europe are inherently violent. It is that they are fertile recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda extremist types who prey on alienated, angry, disenfranchised Muslims (of which France is completely guilty of creating). If France isn't careful, it could become like Egypt, where the government is held hostage by a large, militant population of radicalized subversives. France is at a crossroads, and the example it sets by the way it deals (positively or negatively) with this problem will have ramifications globally.

[irateplatypus]

for me, the most unsettling thing to come of this are the activities of mosques and various muslim clerics within france. their role in trying to quell the violence must have good-intentions at their immediate roots but their success (the only ones who appear to have had any degree of success) belies a disturbing part of the Franco-Muslim psyche... Islam has replaced French law as the highest legal authority. No amount of pleading from the French government could do what the Bilal mosque did.

This mirrors the activity in Muslim enclaves within Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain... pockets of immigrants where the Ummah are asserting dominance within the kafir homeland, where dhimmitude as a worldview is gaining ground.

[powerclown]

Originally Posted by irateplatypus

for me, the most unsettling thing to come of this are the activities of mosques and various muslim clerics within france. their role in trying to quell the violence must have good-intentions at their immediate roots but their success (the only ones who appear to have had any degree of success) belies a disturbing part of the Franco-Muslim psyche... Islam has replaced French law as the highest legal authority. No amount of pleading from the French government could do what the Bilal mosque did.

This mirrors the activity in Muslim enclaves within Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain... pockets of immigrants where the Ummah are asserting dominance within the kafir homeland, where dhimmitude as a worldview is gaining ground.

I agree. Especially the part about Islamic law replacing France's own laws.

[roachboy]

i assume that you are referring to the incident a few days ago that centered on the charge that the crs had lobbed a teargas grenade in to the mosquee bilal in clichy-sous-bois?
kind of a strange way to make the reference--almost seems as though you are talking about something else.
let's assume that you actually were referring to clichy-sous-bois
this article, which sadly is in french, talks about the incident:

http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=335197

if you read it, not only will you get the story but also the same kind of language that has come to be dominant over the last week of so about sarkozy--and about the crs---and about the routine violence directed against the people in the banlieux who find themselves in areas like clichy-sous-bois--in fact you would find a whole series of tidbits, much like those i pointed to above, that render your intepretation kind of irrelevant--but it is interesting, your take on things, particularly in that it is rooted in some bizarre notion of a "franco-muslim psyche" which presumably lets you not think about, say, that most of the rioters are kids and that they themselves say that this is about the routine violence directed against them:

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,...-704172,0.html

and if you did any research into this population, you would find out quickly that the main muslim organizations in france are quite conservative, quite close to the french government and so would obviously have no real interest in or influence over these communities--in fact everyone who has actually looked at these riots agrees that there is no religious dimension to the action. including the kids themselves.

everyone except of course for the extreme right, which is inclined to frame its xenophobia and racism behind this kind of argument. spinning their interpretations in this way makes these lovely features seem acceptable. reasonable.
you know, like when you talk about some collective "franco-muslim psyche" that you imagine not only exists, but which is something you know about---that kind of thing enables folk to patronize others by assuming that theirs is not a complex experience, but rather is a simple, kind of mechanical thing that can be comprehended as the working-out of a few simple mechanisms like the "franco-muslim psyche"--with simple folk like that, you dont need research or context or information, nor need you worry about accuracy or anything else really-----anything goes.

and since anything goes, it follows that powerclown would post an article from some rightwing satirical blog, without attribution, presumably to pass it off as meaningful information.

it doesnt matter, all this, it involves brown people far away. and we dont like the french anyway. piss on em, all of em. what's to understand?
all this and an avowed preference for neofascism.
wow.

[irateplatypus]

Originally Posted by roachboy

... particularly in that it is rooted in some bizarre notion of a "franco-muslim psyche" which presumably lets you not think about, say, that most of the rioters are kids and that they themselves say that this is about the routine violence directed against them

just kids eh? are we talking about kids about the age of those that stormed the U.S. embassy in tehran or about the age of palestinian suicide bombers? i'm not drawing lines between the motivations of the french muslims and those other cases, but it's quite apparent that age has little to do with it. "they themselves" say it's about such and such? you take the word of people burning cars in the street at face value and have the nerve to label other's opinions as basic?

and if you did any research into this population, you would find out quickly that the main muslim organizations in france are quite conservative, quite close to the french government and so would obviously have no real interest in or influence over these communities--in fact everyone who has actually looked at these riots agrees that there is no religious dimension to the action. including the kids themselves.

once again your rationale leads you to believe that those who see the situation differently than you must speak out of ignorance. labeling others stupid and racist will only take you so far.

though not many of us have had the opportunity to be embedded w/french marxists, i think you'd be surprised at how much personal experience i've had with french muslims.

[aKula]

Originally Posted by roachboy

and if you did any research into this population, you would find out quickly that the main muslim organizations in france are quite conservative, quite close to the french government and so would obviously have no real interest in or influence over these communities--in fact everyone who has actually looked at these riots agrees that there is no religious dimension to the action. including the kids themselves.

Yes but if the French government relies upon these organizartions, some of which are fundementalist (the group that issued a fatwa againts the violence), to bring the situation under control then the French government is rellying on an organization they do not want to rely upon. A journalist speaking last night commented that they are attempting to avoid this:

We know not all of these young people - it would be too easy to generalise - not all these people are motivated by Muslim fundamentalist networks. But for sure, some of them are. We have these Muslim fundamentalist networks in the area and one of them, which is very important called the French Islamic Organisation Union, close to the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a fatwa this morning, a religious decision, asking these young people to stop the violence, which is an indirect acknowledgement of the influence they can exert upon part of this youth Islamic gang. So I think these people are playing their games. The French Government is aware of it and we will see how far it goes concerning the recuperation by Muslim fundamentalist networks concerning these young people. You were alluding, Tony, you were alluding a few moments ago to what happened in Brussels, where you have a lot of Muslims also, areas where cars have just been burned. Will there be an interconnection? It's a possibility and it might go above the French frontiers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's true that in the suburbs, they have a big influence and probably some of them try to recuperate or some of these youngsters who are very desperate and feel that they are at war against the French state, against the French Government.

Video here: http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200511/r63547_175435.asx
Transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/conte...5/s1499821.htm

Then again as he said they are not all under the influence of such organizations and that it's not a religious dispute that has lead to the violence rather that these people have not been integrated into french society.

[stevo]

Originally Posted by roachboy

i dont think this is accurate--the situation from which all the trouble that is now happening flows is the mode of spatial segregation france chose--which was a state decision--it was a state decision to construct banlieux in the outer reaches of the paris region, encourage almost entirely immigrant folk to live there and then to abandon these places once the labor market collapsed--starting in the middle 1970s.
the spatial arrangment functions as a kind of natural horizon for kids born within it.

And this helps the immigrants assimilate into french society, how? Keeping them spacially segregated from the mainstream french population is part of what is keeping the immigrants from being assimilated. Between the government "policies" and the social attitudes the french are resisting any attempt by the immigrant youth to assimilate. But these youths didn't choose to live in france, their parents did a couple decades ago. So there is some discontent over trying to assimilate into a culture that doesn't want you.

Originally Posted by aKula

Then again as he said they are not all under the influence of such organizations and that it's not a religious dispute that has lead to the violence rather that these people have not been integrated into french society.

exactly. but the fear that the extremist religous organizations will take advantage of the situation, europe-wide.

[roachboy]

irate:

the point of my comment remarks was the assumption that i saw in your post of a simple collective consciousness of some type that you used--a kind of primitivism--the goal seemed to be to assmilate what is going on in france now to the tired, cliche "clash of civilizations" model----which doesn't work--it doesn't do anyting to help interpret the situation in france---it doesnt help interpret anything, really--it is more like a tired data mill--put complex information in, grind out one-dimensional readings that seem only useful if you are interested in maximizing your paranoia about some fantasy religious war. there is a racist dimension to this move, but it emerges through the application of the model you use and may not necessarily involve fully articulated attitudes on the part of the folk who use the model. i would be neither surprised or not surprised by how much experience you might have with french muslim folk--though if you do know many such people, i would think that you'd not use such simplistic modes of thinking about the scenario that is unfolding in france. but whatever--maybe its an aesthetic preference for simple models.


nice allusion to my academic work: so have you read any of it?
i thought that one of the rules of the game here was that we would keep debate between personae.
no matter: the long-term causes for situations like what you are watching happen now is an aspect of what i work on--not the main thing, but important nonetheless. that does not mean that i have what i would consider an adequate reading of the riots--too pressed for time the past days to really devote attention to it---and the coverage is too strange to give the impression a definite reading is possible.

so this is a matter of modelling--i tried to outline factors i think you would need to take into account--you outline samuel huntington. i find that model to be absurd.


akula: it appears that the french govt is going the route state of emergency/curfew. which usually is but a pretext for an escalation of state violence (17 october 1961)...

what do you mean when you say that some of the major muslim organizations in france are fundamentalist? so far as i know, that is not right. unless we do not mean the same thing when we use the term.

stevo

And this helps the immigrants assimilate into french society, how?

it doesnt. that is the point. we agree. so it is possible.

[roachboy]

another context for this situation: the move away from community-based police to a more crs/los angeles model:

French police take the strain
By Patrick Jackson
BBC News website


The shooting of police with birdshot in the Paris suburb of Grigny on Sunday introduced a new level of violence to the French riots.

In the words of local police official Bernard Franio, the Grigny attack was an act of "real, serious violence not like the previous nights".

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who visited the injured men in hospital in nearby Evry on Monday, noted the pellet impacts on one of their helmets.

"So they were aiming for the head?" he said. "Then they really are louts."

Evry itself had made the news a day earlier when police reported finding a petrol bomb factory in a disused police office.

The irony of this would not be lost upon critics of the French government who accuse of it pulling police out of the community only to have to rush them back dressed in riot gear when violence erupts.

Back to basics

According to Le Monde newspaper, the number of community police officers in one northern town, Tourcoing, has fallen from 350 to 150.

FRANCE'S POLICING RESOURCES
National Police, answerable to interior ministry
National Gendarmes, answerable to defence ministry
Municipal Police, recruited by local authorities
Both national forces have their own riot units

In an article published by the same newspaper last week, the minister was unapologetic about such cuts.

While he backed the idea of police forging close ties with the community it was not their role, he said, to "run sporting events".

"Prevention, while indispensable, must not exclude repression each time it proves to be just and necessary."

Tough talk of this kind has earned him the enmity of rioters for whom the sacking of "Sarko" is often cited as a prime goal.

"Big deal!" the minister responded in his Le Monde article, saying that to have his name booed by rioters is "in the order of things".

But some sections of the police themselves are uneasy with their minister's rhetoric, especially his controversial remarks a few days before the riots began about taking a "power hose" to areas with high crime levels.

Taking the flak

Francois Massenet, secretary general of French police trade union UNSA-Police, said it was "too easy to go and stir up the young people and then go off to bed".

"We have to face this situation 24 hours a day," he was quoted by Liberation newspaper as saying.

"You can't say today that you're going to clean out the housing estates with a power hose."

Mr Sarkozy has in fact been making frequent visits to the "front line" - to police units deployed in the areas gripped by violence.

The national secretary of UNSA-Police's Paris branch, Lucien Cozzoli, argues the policy of withdrawing community police may be just as dangerous as the aggressive rhetoric.

"Community police, daily present in the districts, were able to defuse conflicts. We no longer have that defence," he says.

Scores of officers have been injured since 27 October.

"They are very, very tired, they are fighting every night," another police trade unionist, Nicolas Compte, told the BBC World Service.

"We are very upset about it. It is really long and the riots are extending."

New times, new tactics

The government has responded by reinforcing its units on the ground, both with regular police and the paramilitary gendarmes controlled by the defence ministry.

A policy of sealing off troubled areas seems to be having only limited success, however, as rioters can often quickly move elsewhere in small groups.

The police's special CRS riot control force has changed tactics in response, dividing its units into small, mobile groups of six to eight officers which have a better chance of pursuing suspects, police sources told Liberation.

Local curfews are also likely to be introduced.

As police officers face stones, petrol bombs and even firearms on a nightly basis, some commentators have made comparisons with the great worker and student unrest of 1968 when the riot police's frequent heavy-handedness drew chants of "SS - CRS" from the demonstrators.

The 2005 street violence began after rumours that two teenagers had been chased to their deaths by police - a charge strongly denied.

Reports of police tear gas entering a mosque further aggravated the situation.

Keenly aware of this, police trade union leaders have called on officers to keep their cool and warn that if they let their emotions boil over verbally or physically "public opinion will not understand and the media will be only too happy to make use of it".

"We are doing the job," Nicolas Compte told the BBC. "But it is very difficult to do it [gently] because we have to be tough."

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4415574.stm

[Mojo_PeiPei]

Can someone just clarify this for me. The riots are still going on correct? The police have pulled out in some areas hoping for the problem to correct itself? THe mobs have become more violent now using weapons? Most importantly, the RIOTS ARE STILL GOING ON?!?!

Jesus-tapdancing-christ, this is just confounding, grow a spine and knock some fucking heads, it is way beyond me how they can even tolerate this. I get that some empathy should be used, after all it's not the pseudo-frogs fault they are rioting, they were pushed to it right? Get order and control before you start being all fluffy bunny with your people.

[powerclown]

PARIS, France (CNN) -- The French Cabinet has approved emergency measures giving police more powers and allowing local officials to impose curfews in communities at risk of rioting after the nation endured a 12th night of unrest.

President Jacques Chirac said the new powers were "necessary to accelerate the return to calm."

"...measures giving police more powers...".

What? Have they been authorized to use handcuffs now?

It's bizarre, to say the least. Imagine the Outrage if Katrina wasn't addressed for close to 2 weeks.