November 6, 200520 yr http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/06/...D8DMN0PGJ.shtml Segregation is still alive in many parts of the world, this is one of those places. People are frustrated.
November 6, 200520 yr Just goes to show, that fundamentalist Islam will find fault and thus a reason to make violence with anyone... even France who doesnt' touch the Middle East
November 6, 200520 yr Author This is an old conflict that spans many, many years. The Moors vs. the European "host," in this case France. Spain had Middle Age Wars to drive North African Moors back to North Africa, France now has regular immigration, but violence is stemming from frustration due to an unemployment level officially at 30% and unofficially as high as 40% in these suburbs of Paris where immigrants live. Some will say that since France didn't go to the war, the war has come to France. I am not sure what to say of that, but I think this will be a scary, yet interesting battle. Will martial law come to Paris? From TIME...Why Paris is burning: http://www.cnn.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1125401,00.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4411192.stm http://www.euronews.net/create_html.php?page=home
November 7, 200520 yr France has a pretty piss poor (and bloody) relationship with Western African nations. I'm sure the Tunisian and Mauritanian immigrants and their French-born children still harbor alot of that resentment into France. Africans being denied jobs and living below the poverty line I'm sure doesn't help any of this. This is already a really ugly situation and I'm not sure if France is capable with dealing with 5 million Muslims who are poor and pissed off. Their military and law enforcement appartus is very modern but I don't know if thery can swiftly contain something this large and widespread.
November 8, 200520 yr Just goes to show, that fundamentalist Islam will find fault and thus a reason to make violence with anyone... even France who doesnt' touch the Middle East Algeria. The Crusades.
November 8, 200520 yr The unrest has nothing to do with Muslims vs France...its poor people revolting.
November 8, 200520 yr Author The unrest has nothing to do with Muslims vs France...its poor people revolting. The reason the people are poor is because the French government is not creating policies to assimiliate them into French culture and they live in the slums because they are Muslims. It is a religious/racial issue.
November 10, 200520 yr The unrest has nothing to do with Muslims vs France...its poor people revolting. Thank you.
November 11, 200520 yr i'll say this: when you leave your country, your people and decide to go someplace else where you know you are going to be different, you do not have a reason to complain about discrimination, poverty or any of the sort. you can go back to where you came from, and be among your people. or you have to buy the bullet, put up with all the sh*t, and hope that someday you'll be vindicated.
November 11, 200520 yr when you leave your country...you do not have a reason to complain about discrimination Unbelievable. Thank God that's not how it works, or isn't supposed to work, in the US. btw, it's bite the bullet, not buy the bullet.
November 11, 200520 yr CNN Breaking News: President Bush May Send Up To 5 Marines For French Assistance President Bush has authorized the Joint Chiefs to begin drawing up a battle plan to pull France's ass out of the fire again. Facing an apparent overwhelming force of up to 400 pissed off teenagers Mr. Bush doubts France's ability to hold off the little pissants. "Hell, if the last two world wars are any indication, I would expect France to surrender any day now", said Bush. Joint Chiefs head, Gen. Peter Pace, warned the President that it might be necessary to send up to 5 Marines to get things under control. The general admitted that 5 Marines may be overkill but he wanted to get this thing under control within 24 hours of arriving on scene. He stated he was having a hard time finding even one Marine to help those ungrateful bastards out for a third time but thought that he could persuade a few women Marines to do the job before they went on pregnancy leave. President Bush asked Gen. Pace to get our Marines out of there as soon as possible after order was restored. He also reminded Gen. Pace to make sure the Marines did not take soap, razors, or deodorant with them. The less they stand out the better. "I am confident that five pregnant female Marines will be more than enough to get the job done," said General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff.
November 11, 200520 yr an interesting take. Some in France Ask: Where Are the Parents? By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI Associated Press Writer November 11, 2005, 1:56 PM EST CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, Paris -- Night after night of rioting across France in which children as young as 10 have hurled firebombs and torched cars has prompted many people to ask: Where were the parents? The rampaging in the impoverished, mainly immigrant neighborhoods underscores not only tensions in French society but also troubles in the homes where many of the rioters have grown up. Many parents are struggling to make ends meet, leaving them little time for their children. They often can hardly communicate with their sons and daughters: Many parents are not French citizens and never learn to speak French, while their children don't learn the language of their ancestors. Some parents even blame the recent riots on a French law that prohibits them from hitting their kids, which they say renders them powerless to assert control. The government wants parents to be more responsible. But aid groups wonder if parents even know what their children are up to. Fatna, an Algerian immigrant who agreed to speak on condition her last name not be used, insists on the innocence of her 21-year-old son, who was sentenced to two months in jail for a role in the riots. Most of the people interviewed would only allow their first names to be used, and even then only reluctantly. They appeared worried about drawing the attention of their neighbors. "Life is very difficult here," Fatna said in Arabic. She, like her husband, is illiterate and doesn't speak French despite having lived here for more than 25 years. Fatna said her son, Khaled, was at home when the first riots broke out in their home town, Clichy-Sous-Bois, on Oct. 27. But at 10 p.m. the next day he went to the local teahouse as he did every night during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. She didn't think much of it when he failed to return home, because it wasn't unusual. Sometimes, she said, he stayed with his sister. Instead, Khalad had been arrested with other youths for participating in the riots. She pleaded with the magistrate that her son was innocent. "They said that's what all parents say," said Fatna. Still, she is convinced her son was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Khaled, who dropped out of school after failing his high school exams, is unemployed. He worked for eight months and then stopped, but his mother said she didn't know what kind of job he had. "I don't read, I don't write," she said. "I don't know anything. "They don't give work to the young. The young are not treated well by the police," said Fatna, who has never worked outside the home. Parents complain their children don't listen to them, often lie and sometimes threaten to report the parents to police for abusing them if they can't have their way. Many children express frustration at having to comply with values they don't share. "France is a democratic country. It gives rights to women and children," said Abderrahman Bouhout, director of the Bilal Mosque in Clichy-Sous-Bois. "Now parents cannot do anything -- if they hit their 12-year-old, police will come to their door. There's a hot line the kids can call to report parental abuse." Children have "too much freedom," complained Abdelhalim Salah, 68, arguing that government policy has undermined parents. Sabrine, a 41-year-old mother of four who came from Tunisia 20 years ago, said police shouldn't blame parents for failing to stop the violence. "We cannot bring up our kids the way we want, to teach them Islam," said Sabrine, adding that France encourages children to choose how they want to practice religion. "They say religion is not obligatory or that parents are not allowed to make their children wear the hijab (veil) or to pray," she said. "They want to give our children the same freedoms they give to the French." Some youths admit they don't take grown-ups seriously. "The 'elders' of the projects have tried to calm us down, but we don't care," said 20-year-old Karim, rolling a hashish joint. According to Sonia Imloul, who works with troubled teens in Seine-Saint-Denis, the Paris-area town hit hardest by the unrest, an estimated 40 percent of families in the suburbs are dysfunctional, causing a high rate of school dropouts, drug use, petty crime and aggressive behavior. "What are 12-year-olds doing in the streets at midnight? Parents have no control over them," Imloul said. Parallels may be drawn between the immigrant children of France and Palestinian youth revolting against Israeli occupation. Those parents, too, feel their control over their children is receding. But here, parents also complain that schools are a breeding ground for crime. They say educational standards are poor because inexperienced teachers usually are assigned to schools in poor areas. With no close supervision -- from parents or school -- many youths end up in the streets. What's striking, said Marie-Noelle Botte, who works with children and mothers in Clichy-Sous-Bois, is that the youths jailed for the riots show no remorse. "Generally, they don't feel guilty," she said, "For them, it's like stealing sweets from a shop." Unemployed parents are not a good role model, Botte said. Asked why she had not learned French after 27 years in France, Fatna shrugged. "I don't go out, I'm home all the time. I don't meet anyone." http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wo...world-headlines
November 12, 200520 yr That article is astonishing. I can't believe the French are as stupid as they are. This ranks up there with the obvious religious symbols in school law.
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