From FoxNews Seventh Night of Riots in France.
France's government faced mounting pressure Thursday as suburban unrest spread, with youths setting fire to a car dealership and public buses in battles with riot police, who reportedly came under gunfire.Youths rampaged for a seventh straight night, undeterred by the presence of armed riot police. Acts ranging from clashing with police to torching vehicles were reported in at least 10 Paris (search)-region towns.
The riots have highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor suburbs and frustrations simmering in housing projects to the north and northeast of Paris, heavily populated by North African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children who struggle with high unemployment, crime and poverty.
From Jihad Watch: French Muslims riot for seventh night running.
The difference between the Reuters headline and mine epitomizes the difficulty the French have in facing the real dimensions of this problem. For it is ultimately not a problem of disaffected youth who just need jobs and money, but of youth who consider the French government a foreign power, and one that ultimately must be replaced by a very different kind of government. Bat Ye'or in Eurabia has demonstrated that the French for over 30 years now have allowed for massive immigration without making any move to assimilate the immigrants. Up until the hijab ban their Islamic identity was not only unchallenged but encouraged -- partly out of ignorance of how the Sharia impulse conflicts with the Western societal model of pluralism. Now they are reaping the fruit.
See No Pasaran for more.
UPDATE I -- Nov. 4: From FoxNews Paris Riots Spread to 20 Suburbs.
A week of riots in poor neighborhoods outside Paris gained dangerous new momentum Thursday, with youths shooting at police and firefighters and attacking trains and symbols of the French state. ...The unrest cast a cloud over the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. In Clichy-sous-Bois — heart of the rioting — men filled the Bilal mosque for evening prayers, but streets were subdued with shops shutting early.
UPDATE II: From FoxNews French Riots Spread Beyond Paris.
The chaotic riots that have gripped the suburban slums north of Paris for more than a week spread to more suburbs and other towns across France Thursday night.North of Paris, Muslim youths from northern and sub-Saharan Africa torched over 400 cars and several large stores. Jean-Francois Cordet, a regional official, said a group of 30 to 40 teenagers harassed police near a synagogue and that a school classroom had been partially burned.
UPDATE III -- Nov. 5: From FoxNews Paris Rioters Burn Ambulance and Stone Medics.
Widespread riots across impoverished areas of France took a malevolent turn in a ninth night of violence, as youths torched an ambulance and stoned medical workers coming to the aid of a sick person. Authorities arrested more than 200 people, an unprecedented sweep since the beginning of the unrest.Posted by Forkum at November 3, 2005 04:23 PMOther bands of predominantly Muslim youths also burned a nursery school, warehouses and more than 750 cars overnight as the violence that spread from the restive Paris suburbs to towns around France. ...
An attack this week on a woman bus passenger highlighted the savage nature of some of the violence. The woman, in her 50s and on crutches, was doused with an inflammable liquid and set afire after passengers were forced to leave the bus, blocked by burning objects on the road, judicial officials said.
Late Friday in Meaux, east of Paris, youths prevented firefighters from evacuating a sick person from an apartment in a housing project, pelting them with stones and torching the awaiting ambulance, an Interior Ministry officer said. The officer, not authorized to speak publicly, asked not to be named.
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