Saturday, November 05, 2005

PRESIDENT CHIRAC MISSES A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK OUT...

At the moment I'm typing this, French Muslim youths are partying like it's 742. Just consider, over the past 24 hours:


* an estimated total of 897 vehicles nationwide on the night of Friday to Saturday was torched (500 the night before), bringing the tally to an estimated 1,260 by Saturday morning
* paramedics who were evacuating a sick person from a housing project in Meaux were stoned, and the awaiting ambulance was set on fire
* a nursery school in Acheres, west of Paris was completely destroyed by fire
* cars were burnt in Lille, in the northwest of France (on average three a day)
* police counted some 20 torched cars in Tourcoing, Roubaix en Mons-en-Baroeul, places near the Belgian border. So that's where that smell comes from.
* a bus depot to the west of Paris was set alight and twenty buses were completely destroyed
* in Rennes and Nantes, cities in Brittany, 45 cars were destroyed
* violent riots were reported in Dijon, a large city in east central Francd, and Marseille, on the Mediterranean coast
* there was arson in Rouen (Normandy) and Toulouse (south west France)
* in Suresnes, normally a quite town west of Paris, 44 cars were burned
* 258 thugs were detained overnight
* in Torcy, to the east of Paris, looters set fire to a youth center and a police station
* in Aubervilliers, to the north of Paris, a carpet warehouse was set alight
* in Percan there was arson in an underground garage
* gunshots were fired in Sarcelles, north of Paris
* in Pierrefitte, to the northwest of Paris, an attempt was made to burn a synagogue using an incendiary device
* in Essonne, police already documented 23 cars destroyed by fire before 21h00 Saturday evening
* in the commune of Grigny, two schools were burnt. Five classerooms of the "Sleeping Beauty" nursery school were destroyed and two in "Ecole Triolet". A large fire also devastated a paper recycling plant.
* in Vigneux, another school was set alight, and police reported that 35 vehicles had been set on fire throughout the department not long before 22h.
* in Seine-Saint-Denis, police reported many burnt vehicles. A significant fire was also announced in a gymnasium of Noisy-le-Grand.
* in Seine-et-Marne, weight-heavy was on fire opposite the professional college of Savigny-le-Temple, where the firemen were taken for targets by stone launchers.
* in the Quartier des Musiciens in Mureaux (Yvelines) approximately 50km to the west of Paris, a car was set ablaze requiring the intervention of firemen.Peaceful Muslim youths hold a vigil by Citroënlight
* in the Quartier de la République in Paris, three cars were damaged by Molotov cocktails near the police station.
* from other parts of the country, multiple incidents were reported from towns and cities that were relatively calm until now. Mainly cars set alight using Molotov cocktails by gangs of young people, as in Avignon (Vaucluse), Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne), Soissons (Aisne), Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), Montauban (the Tarn-and-Garonne) or in Loir-et-Cher.
* fire officials reported a tractor-trailer set on fire in Lille and a bus burned in Auby.
* in the south, in Marseilles (Bouches-du-Rhone) police reported three fires of cars by 21h00.
* in the Alpes-Maritimes region, several vehicles were also set on fire in the cities of Cannes and in Nice, where firemen were pelted with rocks while trying to extinguish the blaze.
* in Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) a half-dozen cars had already been set alight not long before 21h00.



Determined French citizens fight backHowever, French citizenry responded in force: e.g. on Saturday morning, more than 1,000 people took part in a silent march in Aulnay-sous-Bois, filing past burned-out cars to demand calm. Banners read: "No to violence". And from his part, PM Dominique de Villepin did not sit still himself: on Saturday he met with community leaders and members of his Cabinet Saturday to address the situation.


Mr. BoobahkeurThis rather uncompromising French reaction was not entirely approved by Mr. Dalil Boubakeur, Head of the Paris Mosque and of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, and so, after the meeting, Mr Boubakeur urged a change in tone from the government:

"What I want from the authorities, from Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, the prime minister and senior officials are words of peace,"




After coming across some of the numerous tawdry French blogs such as No Pasaran, I tend to lean over to Mr. Boubakeurs viewpoint. E.g., just read the following tasteless diatribe and judge for yourself (excerpt from abovementioned blog):

Dalil Boubakeur, Head of the Paris mosque and of the ineffective joke known as the French Council of the Muslim Faith, has called on French authorities to use respectful words of peace so as not to rile up hair trigger sensibilities. Mr. Boubakeur needs to be reminded that when Interior Minister Sarkozy called suburban youth riffraff and thugs, it was following the murder of a 10 year old child. Punks who kick a father to death in front of his family are scum. Rioters who douse handicapped people with gasoline before setting them alight are animals. And now that I think of it, Mr. Boubakeur can go straight to Hell.


You will agree that the Blogosphere can be a very nasty place indeed. Now let us cut the crap and proceed to MFBB's expedient solution to solve the crisis:

Leclerc Main Battle Tank


MFBB

Friday, November 04, 2005

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

ALL RIOT ON THE PARISIAN FRONT.

For the fifth consecutive night, violent riots have taken place in Clichy-sous-Bois. There was also a rather underreported riot in Utrecht, The Netherlands, where a large group of Moroccan youths attacked police, but hey, after all it's the peaceful season of Ramadan dontcha know.

A Le Monde snippet:

I have a nightmare
Le ministre de l'intérieur, Nicolas Sarkozy, devait recevoir, place Beauvau, lundi 31 octobre dans l'après-midi, les parents des deux adolescents morts électrocutés dans un transformateur EDF, à Clichy-sous-Bois. Mais ceux-ci ont refusé de rencontrer le ministre de l'intérieur. Au cours d'une conférence de presse à la mosquée de Clichy-sous-Bois, Siyakah Traore, frère du jeune Bouna décédé, a déclaré : "En aucun cas, nous n'irons voir Sarkozy qui, pour nous, est incompétent, comme l'ont montré son discours à la télé (sur TF1 dimanche soir) et la manière dont est menée l'enquête". "Nous demandons le calme, nous demandons que justice soit faite, nous demandons que les CRS partent et nous demandons à être reçus par M. de Villepin". De son côté, Amor Benna, le père du jeune Ziad, le deuxième mineur, décédé jeudi 27 octobre, a également annoncé qu'il n'irait pas voir le ministre de l'intérieur.

In short, on Monday 31 October, a meeting was scheduled between Nicolas Sarkozy, French Interior Minister, and the parents of Ziad and Banou, the two electrocuted guys. During a press conference in the Clichy mosque however, Siyakah Traore, brother of Banou, said:

Under no circumstances will we meet with Sarkozy who for us is incompetent, as he has shown on television (on TF1 sunday evening). We ask for calm, we ask justice be done, and we ask that the CRS leave and that we are received by Mr. De Villepin.

Amor Benna, father of Ziad, also said he would not meet with Mr. Sarkozy. If you think that ain't arrogant, then you probably also think Alito has great hair.

There's also been quite some fuss about French Police allegedly firing a tear gas grenade into the Clichy mosque:

From CNN:

"I am, of course, available to the imam of the Clichy mosque to let him have all the details in order to understand how and why a tear gas bomb was sent into this mosque," he (Sarkozy) told about 170 police officers at the prefecture.

From Le Monde:

Une grenade lacrymogène a été tirée, dimanche vers 21 heures, contre la mosquée. Peu avant de se rendre à la préfecture de Bobigny, M. Sarkozy a confirmé l'incident. Il a dit que l'engin "est en dotation des compagnies d'intervention (CRS) qui étaient sur place en Seine-Saint-Denis". Mais le ministre de l'intérieur a précisé que cela ne voulait "pas dire que c'est un tir fait par un policier, c'est l'enquête qui le déterminera". "Je rencontrerai l'imam de cette mosquée pour en parler avec lui", a-t-il ajouté. Peu après les faits, une source policière avait affirmé que la grenade lancée sur la mosquée de Clichy-sous-Bois n'appartenait pas à la police, voyant dans cet incident "une provocation".


In short, Sarkozy acknowledged that there had been an incident in which the tear gas grenade was fired at the mosque. No doubt realizing how foolish that would be from French police given the tense situation, he nevertheless pointed out that he wanted to wait for the results of an inquiry. And 'lo and behold, a little while after a police source confirmed that the grenade type was not on the French police inventory, suggesting it had been "a provocation".


But the best is yet to come:

Via LGF I linked to an International Herald Tribune column and this is the paragraph that struck me most:

Since the start of the year, 9,000 police cars have been stoned and, each night, 20 to 40 cars are torched, Sarkozy said in an interview last week with the newspaper Le Monde.

I checked out Le Monde online and found that the article had already been shelved in the paying section. However, the window did provide the releveant quote:


I have a nightmareExtrait : LES VIOLENTES émeutes de Clichy-sous-Bois, dans la nuit du jeudi 27 au vendredi 28 octobre, à la suite de la mort de deux jeunes, réfugiés dans un transformateur EDF pour échapper à la police, posent la question des « violences urbaines » qui éclatent dans les banlieues. Dans l'entretien qu'il a accordé au Monde, le 25 octobre, le ministre de l'intérieur, Nicolas Sarkozy, avait évoqué ce sujet, et singulièrement celui des incendies de voitures, en hausse ces derniers mois. « Certains caïds se comportent comme les propriétaires d'un territoire, avait-il déploré. Depuis le début de l'année, 9 000 voitures de police ont été caillassées. Chaque nuit, il y a entre 20 et 40 véhicules brûlés."

Key quote is of course the last sentence:

Certain caïds behave like local overlords, he (Sarkozy) deplored. Since the start of the year, 9,000 police vehicles have been stoned. Every night, been between 20 and 40 cars were put on fire.

Stop the world, I want to get off it.


MFBB