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| Europe |
| Why 112 cars are burning every day |
| 2006-10-21 |
| A year after the Paris riots violence and despair continue to grip the immigrant suburbs FLAMES lick around a burning car on a tiny telephone screen. Omar, 17, a veteran of France’s suburban riots, replayed the sequence with pride. “It was great. We did lots of them and then we went out and torched more the next day.” Omar, whose parents immigrated from Mali, was savouring memories of the revolt that erupted 12 months ago from his home, the Chêne Pointu estate in Clichy-sous-Bois, in the eastern outskirts of Paris. “We’re ready for it again. In fact it hasn’t stopped,” he added. Before next week’s anniversary of the Clichy riots, the violence and despair on the estates are again to the fore. Despite a promised renaissance, little has changed, and the lid could blow at any moment. The figures are stark. An average of 112 cars a day have been torched across France so far this year and there have been 15 attacks a day on police and emergency services. Nearly 3,000 police officers have been injured in clashes this year. Officers have been badly injured in four ambushes in the Paris outskirts since September. Some police talk of open war with youths who are bent on more than vandalism. “The thing that has changed over the past month is that they now want to kill us,” said Bruno Beschizza, the leader of Synergie, a union to which 40 per cent of officers belong. Action Police, a hardline union, said: “We are in a civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists.” Car-burning has become so routine on the estates that it has been eclipsed in news coverage by the violence against police. Sebastian Roche, a sociologist who has published a book on the riots, said that torching a vehicle had become a standard amusement. “There is an apprenticeship of destruction. Kids learn where the petrol tank is, how to make a petrol bomb,” he told The Times. Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister who hopes to win the presidency next May, has once again taken the offensive, staging raids on the no-go areas and promising no mercy for the thugs who reign there. With polls showing law and order as the top public concern, his presidential chances hang on his image as a tough cop. M Sarkozy’s muscular approach is being challenged not just by Socialist opponents. President Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, his Prime Minister, are waging their own, softer, campaign to undermine the colleague whom they do not want to be president. M de Villepin called in community leaders this week and promised to accelerate hundreds of millions of pounds of measures that were promised last autumn to relieve the plight of the immigrant-dominated suburbs. National politics seem far from Clichy, a leafy town of hulking apartment buildings only ten miles but a universe away from the Elysée Palace. However, the Interior Minister is cited by the estate youths as the symbol of their anger. “Sarko wants to wipe us out, clear us off the map,” said Rachid, 19. “They said they would help us after last year, but we’ve got nothing.” Rachid is to attend a march next Friday for Zyed and Bouna, the teenagers whose deaths in an electrical station sparked the rioting that engulfed the Seine-Saint-Denis département, known from its registration number, 93, as le Neuf-Trois. The boys, aged 17 and 15, who were hiding from police when they were electrocuted, are seen in Clichy as martyrs. Amor Benna, 61, the Tunisian father of Zyed, appealed this week to the young to refrain from violence and use their votes for change. “I don’t want to see cars burning again,” he said from his home on the Chêne Pointu estate. But the unhappiness was understandable, said M Benna, a street cleaner. “The young were born here and they are French. But they have nothing. The real problem is work. If they had any these riots would not have happened.” |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #16 The Paris burbs appear to be a giant training camp for terr wannabes. And for every 100 wannabes, couldn't there be two or three "success stories"? Not to mention senior cell-leader wannabes who can play sandbox with the police responses every night? Vegas' PD is getting a reputation for excessive force, with more officers using their weapons than ever before. And I'll take it any day of the week. |
| Posted by: Vegas Matt 2006-10-21 19:35 |
| #15 French vigilantes need to start vandalizing and burning all cars with that "discreet sticker". Until the ummah starts sharing in the pain, there will be no deterrent to continued havoc. The French police and municipal authorities are idiots. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-21 17:15 |
| #14 Note that a discreet sticker on the car showing the owner to be a Muslim gives it protection from burning. In other words, don't imagine that this is a Muslim-on-Muslim thing. It is aimed at the Infidel French. |
| Posted by: Grunter 2006-10-21 16:25 |
| #13 M de Villepin called in community leaders this week and promised to accelerate hundreds of millions of pounds of measures that were promised last autumn to relieve the plight of the immigrant-dominated suburbs Maybe that's the secret plan. They are going to build an auto plant in their neighborhood. |
| Posted by: Hupuger Angiter7152 2006-10-21 15:57 |
| #12 Thank you for the catch, markawarka. Off by a mere 7X, I was. So, instead, we're looking at almost a solid BILLION DOLLARS of wealth being lost. It's difficult to see this as gooseing France's economy. What I see is a lot of lower income families losing their sole means of transportation and sliding into economic despair. I'm amazed that vigilantes have not gone out and caved in the skulls of these little thugs. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-21 15:30 |
| #11 A quick back-of-the-cocktail-napkin calculation puts this lost value (112 cars/week x 40 weeks x $25K per vehicle) at well over a solid $100,000,000. calculation was maybe a bit to quick - that's 112 cars day x 280 days x $25k = 784,000,000. I think 25k a car is maybe to high, but still, that's a lotta dough. Here's another nifty calculation: France's population is roughly 1/5 of the U.S.'s. I wonder what european newspapers would be saying if there were 500+ car burnings a day, and 15,000 police injured this year in the U.S.of A. Not to mention 20 frickin' ambushes with serious injuries in the NYC outskirts since September. |
| Posted by: markawarka 2006-10-21 15:01 |
| #10 You either learn to live with those rules, or you go hungry Not in the Euro welfare states, you don't. And that's the problem (or one of them, at any rate). |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-21 14:54 |
| #9 It's been pointed out time and time again that the best means to guarantee a decent future are education, training, a willingness to work, and refraining from destructive behavior (excessive drinking, drugs, [for women, unwed pregnancy,] and other destructive behavior). Add to that, for the French muslims, the ability to speak well the local language. Of course, there is a deficit of jobs in France due to their social system, but there ARE jobs in other parts of the European community where the more well-educated could be employed. Unfortunately the French muslims are a lot like certain segments of our own soceity - following the rules is too much like giving in to "the man". Here, the OTHER golden rule applies - he who has the gold, makes the rules. You either learn to live with those rules, or you go hungry. Neither the French muslims nor those segments of US society have grasped that yet. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-10-21 14:53 |
| #8 Few "trends" are as self-destructive, socially-destructive, obviously inane, and simply mind boggling as the global popularity of gangsta crap. If the black community ever wants to know why they continue to be societally marginalized, they need look no further than gangsta rap. The glorification of violence, promotion of conspicuous consumption and routine degradation of women positions it as a significant and universally retrograde force in our modern world. While there is some intelligent rap music being produced, even that material's near total absence of musical complexity make listening to it a jaw-clenching experience at best. This latter category represents such a minor fraction of all rap music that the entire genre is fundamentally without redemption. That black parents allow this music into their homes, permit their children to watch it on television, condone its emulation in dress or behavior and do not instead propose moral arguments against its intensely negative (lack of) character is a central reason in their continuing role as an underclass in America. That parents of any race permit their children to buy into this distorted world view goes a long way towards explaining the prevailing lack of intelligence and ascendancy of criminal gangs in our inner cities. Whenever you pause to wonder why modern art and culture in general is so pathetically shallow, look no further than gansta rap for a wealth of explanation. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-21 14:40 |
| #7 The figures are stark. An average of 112 cars a day have been torched across France so far this year A quick back-of-the-cocktail-napkin calculation puts this lost value (112 cars/week x 40 weeks x $25K per vehicle) at well over a solid $100,000,000. I'd still like to know how they can sustain the destruction of 112 autos/day on average. Who pays ? Like you, SpecOp35, I'd sure like to know as well. This is a huge drain on the economy and our French contributors have already made it clear that insurance policies rarely cover the losses. I'm hoping that some French activists will load a car with explosives so when the yoots gather 'round for the car-b-que they get peppered with flying auto parts. France's attempt to triangulate against the United States through an alliance with the Arabs has been its own |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-21 14:21 |
| #6 I have to figure this is part of some jobs stimulus campaign in France - replacing 40,000 cars a year has to goose GDP a little. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2006-10-21 14:19 |
| #5 Few "trends" are as self-destructive, socially-destructive, obviously inane, and simply mind boggling as the global popularity of gangsta crap. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-21 12:14 |
| #4 I'm wondering how much French taxpayers are subsidizing the car replacements, perhaps without being aware of that fact. If the French don't choose to defend themselves there is literally nothing we can do except to continue to work on things like missile defense and WMD detection, against the day when their nukes are in Islamic hands. |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-10-21 12:13 |
| #3 I'd still like to know how they can sustain the destruction of 112 autos/day on average. Who pays ? Are the auto companies supporting this in the backround ? Sure makes demand go up. But, again, who pays ? They need to shoot a couple hundred of these punks. They'll catch on eventually. |
| Posted by: SpecOp35 2006-10-21 12:10 |
| #2 Lol, check the video in the first message of that "skyblog" (IE "blogs" hosted by a rap radio, hugely popular among the Yooouuuths and the mtv-brainwashed teens, which allow France to claim being the N°1 blogging Nation, by the way...). |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-21 10:47 |
| #1 "despair" ??? Rofl. Sure thang, work would be good. But you've already fucked that notion up with your socialist paradise. Why doncha try out FDR's CCW ideas? Then they'd really burn your country down. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-21 10:03 |