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France is burning
Topic Started: Nov 5 2005, 05:09 AM (1,283 Views)
iainhp
Middle Aged Carp
I don't have much to add except my own observation from our trip in August. I took the train from CDG airport into Paris on a Saturday evening - presumably through some of the areas where the riots are occuring (news artcile said that a couple of trains from CDG were targeted). The people I saw out on their decks (were talking a concrete deck here) looked to be African rather than Middle Eastern (the clothing is different). Certainly Paris is full of Middle Easterners, but the guys trying to sell souvenirs outside Versailles looked to be African, whereas the streets of the Latin Quarter are filled with a multi-racial mix. To me it looked like the African immigrant was the one at the lowest end of society.
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***musical princess***
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HOLY CARP!!!
If i didn't agree with you i would say that is pretty harsh. But i do, so i won't.

:D

x
x Caroline x
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
many of the dark skinned population of paris are from the french carribean (eg..Barbados, Antigua, Martinique and Guadeloupe) although arguably their ancestors were from black africa until sold into slavery by arab traders.

although i only have second hand info from press reports, it would seem the root of the rioting problem now is the north african immigrant population, (Algerians and Morroccans) and this has really been a powder keg waiting to explode.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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kathyk
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Pisa-Carp
I wonder why they've allowed it. When I lived in Germany in the early 80s, there was a really dichotomous relationship with the largely N. African/middle eastern immigrant population euphaministically tagged, Gaestarbeiteren (guest workers). That tag fairly summed up the situation. The German economy was so good at the time that no German with any self respect would do the work relegated to the dregs of society, eg.: Street sweeping, chamber maid work, garbage collection, service work. So these people were let in to do the jobs that no good German would do. But the signs of bias and hatred toward them were everywhere, most glaringly in the graffiti around the city denigrating the guest workers. They were very marginalized and looked down upon, while at the same time, very needed.

I wonder if the situation was similar in France. That the workers were needed and the gates opened?
Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
What I noticed when I visited Paris was that race relations seem to be based on a model that would be considered unacceptable in most countries today. A group of Afro-carribean youths were searched 'at random' by an extremely belligerent group of policemen, to my eyes at least for no reason other than they were black. The sad thing to me was the resigned expression of the people being searched, which indicated, to me at least, it wasn't exactly unexpected.

I'm not sure this is a muslim thing, or a middle eastern thing. It may be simply be a race thing.

As to why it's not getting big coverage in the US. Does anything that doesn't happen in the US?
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
i guess it depends what your news source is.

my main news source is the net, my home page is a personalized my yahoo with top news stories and top world news stories, and its been consistently on the headlines for the past 10 days...
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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Optimistic
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HOLY CARP!!!
I remember reading a bit about Jean-Marie Le Pen in a college French class. This man founded Le Front National, a political party that takes a strong stand against immigrants and ethnic minorities (especially those from North and sub-Saharan Africa). He has been quoted as saying such things as "I do believe in the inequality of the races" and that the Nazi death camps were a mere "detail" of WWII. Although he hasn't exactly come close to winning an election, his party has increasingly been gaining in popularity since its foundation in 1972- starting out with less than 1% of the vote, and in recent years seeing anywhere from between 15 and 30%.

Like I said, there doesn't seem to be much threat that Le Pen will be leading the nation anytime soon, but I find the fact that this man earned a higher percentage of French support than Nader earned American support to be pretty disturbing.

Check out the controversy.
PHOTOS

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And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
Quote:
 
i guess it depends what your news source is.

my main news source is the net, my home page is a personalized my yahoo with top news stories and top world news stories, and its been consistently on the headlines for the past 10 days...


I do that with a 'my=yahoo' home page as well. I like the way you can sub-categorise Reuters, Reuters UK, technology etc. It's also particularly pleasant in the summer to do weather forecasts for where I live now, and where my family live (you don't really need a forecast for the UK). :smile: The internet is the best thing to ever happen to news coverage.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Rick Zimmer
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Fulla-Carp
I expect to see more of this throughout Europe over the next several years.

Europe is only now experiencing waves of immigration like the US has experienced for generations. Just as we had riots of poor immigrants as we shunted them off into ghettoes and refused to hire them because they were different in the 1800's and 1900's, so Europe is repeating our history.

This may make Europe a little more understanding of the difficulties the US has in its race and ethnic relations, when cultures meet, clash and then need to find a way to live and work together. It is not easy but it can be done, as we here in America can testify to.
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
well, to be more specific, the riotors in france are not as much immigrants but children of immigrants born in france. feel disconnected from both society and parents home country.

its a lose lose situation. the french now pay the price of their north african adventure and there is no solution. u cant deport legal citizens born in the country.

however, at the risk of being not P.C., france has a lot of ethnicities from immigration, for example alot of oriental from southeast asia, vietnam china, etc.

they are poor and yet are not rioting.

its the combination of poor plus a violent jihad mentality which makes the north africans different from the other minority groups.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
Quote:
 
Europe is only now experiencing waves of immigration like the US has experienced for generations.


Actually, in the UK at least, the big waves of immigration occurred in the 60's, from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
And the trouble continues to get worse:

Police Find Fuel Bomb Factory Near Paris
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Associated Press

PARIS — Worsening urban unrest reached central Paris for the first time early Sunday and youths set ablaze shops, businesses, schools and nearly 1,300 cars from France's Mediterranean resort towns to the German border.

Some 2,300 police poured into the Paris region to bolster security overnight while firefighters moved out around the city to douse blazing vehicles. Police reported nearly 200 arrests nationwide.

Police also found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a rundown building in Evry, a southern Paris suburb that contained 150 explosives, more than 100 bottles, gallons of fuel and hoods for hiding rioters' faces, Jean-Marie Huet, a senior Justice Ministry official, said Sunday.

For the second night in a row, a helicopter equipped with spotlights and video cameras to track bands of marauding youths combed the Paris suburbs from the air and small teams of police were deployed to chase down rioters speeding from one attack to another in cars and on motorbikes.

The violence took a potentially alarming turn with attacks in the well-guarded French capital. Police said 32 cars were set afire there, mostly on the northern and southern edges of the city.

Inside the city, three cars were damaged by fire from gasoline bombs near the Place de la Republique neighborhood, where residents said they heard a loud explosion and saw flames shooting into the sky.

"We were very afraid," said Annie Partouche, 55, who had watched the cars burning from her apartment window. "We were afraid to leave the building."

The violence — originally concentrated in northeastern suburbs of Paris with large immigrant populations — is forcing France to confront anger long-simmering in the neighborhoods, where many Arab and African Muslim immigrants live on society's margins, struggling with unemployment, poor housing, racial discrimination, crime and a lack of opportunity.

Unrest spread Saturday night across France, extending west to the rolling fields of Normandy and south to Nice and Cannes on the Mediterranean coast.

The Normandy town of Evreux, 60 miles west of Paris, appeared to suffer the worst damage. Arsonists burned at least 50 vehicles, part of a shopping center, a post office and two schools, said Patrick Hamon, spokesman for the national police.

Five police officers and three firefighters were injured in clashes with youths in the town, Hamon said.

"Rioters attacked us with baseball bats," Philippe Jofres, a deputy fire chief from the area told France-2 television. "We were attacked with pickaxes. It was war."

Fires also were reported in Nantes in the southwest, the Lille region in the north, and Saint-Dizier in the Ardennes region east of Paris. In the eastern city of Strasbourg near the German border, 18 cars were set ablaze, police said.

Seven classrooms went up in flames in the Essonne region south of Paris.

The number of cars torched overnight — 1,295 across France — was the highest since the violence began Oct. 27, France-Info radio and other French media reported. Police, who earlier put the number at 918, did not immediately confirm the figure.

The night before, 900 vehicles were burned throughout the country.

The rioting began 10 days ago after two teenagers of north African descent were accidentally electrocuted as they hid in a power substation, apparently believing police were chasing them. Anger was then fanned anew days ago when a tear gas bomb exploded in a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois — the northern suburb where the youths died.

Government officials have held a series of meetings with Muslim religious leaders, local officials and youths from poor suburbs to try to calm the violence.

The director of the Great Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, one of the country's leading Muslim figures, met Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Saturday and urged the government to choose its words carefully and send a message of peace.

"In such difficult circumstances, every word counts," Boubakeur said.

The anger over the deaths of the teenagers spread to the Internet, with sites mourning the youths.

Along with messages of condolence and appeals for calm were insults targeting police, threats of more violence and warnings that the unrest will feed support for France's anti-immigration extreme right.

Arsonists have also burned grocery stores, video stores and other businesses in what Hamon called "copycat" crimes. "All these hoodlums see others setting fires and say they can do it, too."

France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe with 5 million people.

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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
Why Paris is burning

an interesting look at it, from a french newsman.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Very interesting article.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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George K
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Finally
Mark Steyn's Take:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn06.html#
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
Quote:
 
Europe is only now experiencing waves of immigration like the US has experienced for generations. Just as we had riots of poor immigrants as we shunted them off into ghettoes and refused to hire them because they were different in the 1800's and 1900's, so Europe is repeating our history.


Tell us about those riots we experienced as we shunted poor immigrants off into ghettos in the US, Rick.
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AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
North America, Australia, New Zealand and much of South America are built on immigration and settlement. European states in contrast were built on nationalism based largely on the cultural chauvinism of the majority. It therefore should not come as a surprise that visible minorities are treated as foreigners.
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
actually i did a quick search. american immigration was not without its violence. but i dont think it was because of a policy of ghettoizing immigrants, i think it was simply the cultural melting pot all were thrown into.

for some sources...

Immigration & Ethnicity in American History

on the contrary, the french had an express policy of assimilating imigrants and making them "french" as fast as possible, but that was quite unsuccesful.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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bachophile
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HOLY CARP!!!
i see on the news there is now live fire. 10 policemen wounded, 2 seriosuly....

oy vey.
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen
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kentcouncil
Fulla-Carp
AlbertaCrude
Nov 6 2005, 05:55 PM
North America, Australia, New Zealand and much of South America are built on immigtation and settlement. European states in contrast were built on nationalism based largely on the cultural chauvinism of the nationalist majority. Is it therefore should not come as a surprise that visible minorities are treated as foreigners.

Correct. The chauvinism is even more apparent in Asian countries, which are much more racially and culturally homogenous than the European countries.

What's happening in France was only a matter of time.
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't.

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kathyk
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Pisa-Carp
AlbertaCrude
Nov 6 2005, 02:55 PM
North America, Australia, New Zealand and much of South America are built on immigtation and settlement. European states in contrast were built on nationalism based largely on the cultural chauvinism of the nationalist majority. Is it therefore should not come as a surprise that visible minorities are treated as foreigners.

That actually explains a lot and was certainly borne out by my two years living in Germany.
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iainhp
Middle Aged Carp
I discussed the Paris situation with the only French person I know locally, last night. He was absolutely not surprised by the situation. 2nd generation born Frenchmen (of African/Middle Eastern descent) with the name of Mohammed stand absolutely zero chance of getting hired for any respectable job regardless of whether they have 3 PhD's or not.
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AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
kentcouncil
Nov 6 2005, 03:19 PM
The chauvinism is even more apparent in Asian countries, which are much more racially  and culturally homogenous than the European countries.


When I lived and worked in Russia during the 1990's there was a marked difference bewteen European Russians (especially those from Moscow) and Siberian Russians. The latter were far more accomodating to outsiders than the European. Nevertheless, they were both united in an open dislike of visible Muslim minorities from the Caucasus. Chechens at the top of list.
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kentcouncil
Fulla-Carp
AlbertaCrude
Nov 6 2005, 07:07 PM
Nevertheless, they were both united in an open dislike of visible Muslim minorities from the Caucasus. Chechens at the top of list.

Why was that?

I remember a conversation I had with a Serbian physician almost a decade ago. He was intelligent, charming, worldly and widely-travelled... but he had a hatred of Muslims that bordered on the irrational. None of the reasons he gave me made any sense.
It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't.

- P.G. Wodehouse
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AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
KC, it wasn't a dislike or hatred of Muslims per se. Russians are pretty accepting of Tatars and Bashkirs who are also Muslims. Certainly a lot of the senior managers in the Russian oil and gas industry are Tatars and Bashkirs. Likewise both groups occupy all levels of federal and local government. Intermarriage between ethnic Russians and Tatars is not uncommon and, at least among Russians, not frowned upon.

No, it was just a general dislike and distrust (not hatred) of the *non Orthodox* ethnic groups from the Caucasus region.

All the same, all Russians I knew, family included, were some pissed off at Westerners when NATO sided with the *heathen Albanians* against the Christian Serbs over Kosovo.
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