The French riots
November 7, 2005Update:The French government has addmitted it has done too little in the past few decades to fight the poverty and racism in the poor suburbs. Maybe, now that the French government has seen the light, they can finally work on solving it. More updates related to this: this night, riots also broke out in Brussels and Berlin– it is not clear if those riots have connections with the riots in France. Remember that Berlin, in the heart of the DDR, is also very vulnerable to riots, since 15 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the situation of many people inside the DDR hasn’t improved at all; worse yet, it has degraded for many. The unemployment rate in the DDR is a lot higher than in the BDR. And I know what I’m talking about; I have many East-German friends and I go there almost every year.
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Eugenia, be careful with what you say. Apparently, the news in the United States is again biased and it refuses to tell you the whole picture. It is much more complicated than a mere riot.
The rioters are mostly people who have parents or grandparents coming out of the French colonies (ie. Algeria), Africa, Eastern Europe, but also Portugal and Italy. These people are very well integrated into the French society, they do not feel ie. Algerian; they feel French, speak French, and want to be seen as French. Yet, the government does not see them as French.
These people have no jobs. They haven’t been having jobs for ages because the French government has done nothing to promote the acceptance of people with a foreign background in the job marketplace. Unemployment rate among Frenchmen between 18 and 25 is 50%, and for people with a foreign background as a whole it’s 23%, while the average unemployment rate in France is ‘only’ 11%.
They live in poor neighbourhoods, from which they cannot escape due to a lack of money. They have seen their older brothers finish school, and still they don’t have jobs. Also, you assume, probably influenced by the lack of decent media in the US, that these are all dropouts– they aren’t. They mostly have finished school, but are refused jobs because they have a foreign name or whatever. And as I said, the French government has done noting to speed up the acceptance of these people (other as in ie. my country where this process has been much more successful).
The rioters are attacking company buildings in their neighbourhoods from companies who are getting money from the gvt. to operate in these neighbourhoods- yet they do not use this money to employ people from that nieghbourhood ORE to improve the neighbourood. They are NOT randomly setting fires on random buildings.
The French government and police are fueling these riots with excessive violence and display of power. Instead of acknowledging the *huge* social problems that underly these riots, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French secretary of domestic affairs, entitled these people as ‘racaille’ (ask JBQ what it means, he is French, right?), and then he sends even more policemen at these people– and even suggested that al Quaida was behind the riots. Why does Sarkozy do that? Well– Sarkozy wants to become president of France. And, anti-foreign sentiments are huge in France, especially in the countryside. So, Sarkozy turned this into a matter of religion/race while trying to use brute force to suppress something (the social problems which lasted for decades) that you cannot supres with force, in order to gain more votes from anti-foreign sentiments. Populism at its worst. All that of course only fuels the whole thing, as this is not a riot for the sake of a riot; it’s a riot because these people have *no future*.
For you, from the comfort of a wealthy and sunny suburb in the Valley, it’s easy to entitle these people as racaille, but that is simply the path of least resistance. The bomb that has exploded in France was just a ticking timebomb; it wasn’t a matter of if, but when it would explode. And the fact that two Frenchmen with a foreign background got electrocuted in a minor power station, is just the thing that made the bomb explode; it wasn’t the thing that made the bomb.
The danger now lies in the fact that even though the situation is less severe in other European countries (like my own), it can still spread out among the members of the EU.
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Now, Sarkozy could send in the army, as you suggest. But I can guarantee you– it will lead to civil war. Be careful with what you say, Eugenia, the world isn’t black and white. You live in the US now, the media there aren’t giving you the whole picture. Read French, German, Dutch, Spanish and British media to get the whole picture. CNN won’t give you that.
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The real solution lies in other matters. Let the subway and public transport go to the poor neighbourhoods too; not only to the wealthy parts of town. Introduce anonymous job applying, so that companies will not turn down people merely because they have a non-French name. State laws like we Dutch have where companies which employ these people get tax cuts and such; this has proven to work very effectively. This is a social problem, and must be dealt with as such.
Politics | 
>Apparently, the news in the United States is again biased and it refuses to tell you the whole picture.
My husband is french and he is in fact reading french news. I don’t read or listen to US news stations, except of the occasional cnn.com reading.
>These people have no jobs.
That’s because most of them have not finished school.
>They have seen their older brothers finish school
I highly, HIGHLY dispute that! Most of them ARE drop outs. And without a high school diploma, in France, you will get a bad job, or a no-job at all.
>The rioters are attacking company buildings in their >neighbourhoods from companies who are getting money from the gvt.
Yeah, right. And the cars they have burned are all belong to these companies. Please Thom, stop being so “they are right”. They are not right. They have burned PROPERTIES of other, real, like you and me, people.
>The French government and police are fueling these riots with excessive violence and display of power.
This is just not right. It just isn’t. The French government CAN NOT do ANYTHING more at THIS time. This is a problem that needs a LONG TERM solution. What in the world do you want them to do RIGHT now so they can stop burning properties and killing people? (they have just killed one). Even if you ask the rioters won’t know what they want RIGHT NOW to make themselves STOP.
>For you, from the comfort of a wealthy and sunny suburb in the >Valley, it’s easy to entitle these people as racaille, but that is simply the path of least resistance.
If that was my property they were burning, I would sure as hell take out my gun and start shooting at their asses from my window. Be assured of that. I do not tolerate hooliganism, and I don’t give a fuck if they are 10 or 100% right on their cause. My property is MY property and I will protect it by all means necessary.
I am more pissed off at the french government for not taking harsher action to stop these rioters (and protect other people’s properties), than the other way around.
This reply is from my (Polish descent) husband:
“BTW, I have to disagree with the notion that “they are not dropouts”. I’ve seen interesting slices of population when I was in the air force, and the process with which people were being grouped meant that at different times of the year you’d get people with different levels of education (essentially, older people who had received extensions would be sent to the army as soon as their extension would run out, i.e. when they graduated from college, so that from november to january you have the college graduates, and you get younger and younger people as time goes through the year). The last group I took care of, in may, had 1 high-school graduate in about 200 people, a guy who had done a short post-grad. The rest were all coming from those Paris suburbs, none of them had complete high school, and many had a hard time reading. Those kids weren’t used to studying, and as a result even in the military many of them were stuck with the lowest jobs and no hope of getting any kind of responsibility. (because many of them failed the most basic military exam, i.e. they weren’t considered to have completed initial training). For officers like me who were assigned to training, it was a known fact that you wanted to accumulate as much time off as possible early during the year by working nights and week-ends, in order to avoid summer. I took off from June 7th to August 30th. That’s the time when we had AWOL people, when we had people in the brig, when we had people on suicide watch.”
Comment by Eugenia — November 7, 2005 @ 7:48 pm
Now, I’m NOT trying to make their actions right. I hate what they do as much as you do.
However, what I’m contending is, is the notion that there is NO deeper cause behind these riots. The FACTS are that the French government has FAILED to provide decent living conditions for its citizens, and they now try to blame everything that is currently happening on the fact that SOME of these rioters are Muslim or have a foreign background. The response from the police HAS FUELED these riots, making them WORSE than they actually were. It’s a SPIRAL. The police is as much to blame as the rioters for letting this situation escalate. If this spreads to my nation, I will hold the *French government* responsible.
As far as I’m concerned, when a government fails to do its job (much like the US governments have failed to fight poverty in the US), one can protest against that government. The fact that some of these fcukers are taking it way too far is irrelevant to the fact that France has MAJOR SOCIAL PROBLEMS– France is now plucking the bitter fruits of their denial of these problems.
The current riots are CAUSED by INEFFECTIVE French governments. The getting worse of the riots is caused partially by hopeless, jobless, money-less, socially unaccepted people, AND partially by the French government/police– and what sickens me the most, is Sarkozy. That fcuker is trying to win votes with his actions– he and the rest of the gvt. has politicised a HUGE social problem which they are unable to solve.
Let’s line up the mistakes by the French government:
- they failed to provide decent living conditions for their citizens;
- they refused to acknowledge the problems that have been brewing for decades;
- hence they failed to address the situation;
- still being in denial of their failure, they refused to acknowledge the root cause for the riots, and blamed Muslims and more of that nonsense;
- they let the police act way too aggressive, way too violently, only putting oil on the fire;
- in the meantime, they still failed to acknowledge the problems;
- they call the rioters mere ‘racaille’, again fueling the situation.
And now they are in deep fcuking shit.
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The police made the situation worse. What do you think the army will do the situation? do you think the French army will shoot on the very people that are their families? FORGET IT. THAT’s why I said it will be a civil war. Sending in the army will only make things worse– the government only needs to do one thing: apologize for their HUGE mistakes, and implement the tings I mentioned (and more). You CANNOT stop violence with violence, Eugenia, that has been proven countless times in the history of the world.
Maybe I’m too Dutch for this. We Dutch DETEST using fire to fight fire. Our ways may take a little longer, but they are far more effective. Maybe that is why poverty is virtually non-existent in my country. Maybe that’s why we’re number two (or three, I forgot) on the list of happiest/most satisfied people on the planet.
Violence is for the weak.
Comment by Administrator — November 7, 2005 @ 8:16 pm
Thom, what do you suggest the french government do right now to STOP these rioters? Do you see ANY solution to this mess?
Because I sure as fuck, I don’t.
These people are doing everything in an individual basis (and most of them are doing it for the fun of it), there is no “leader” behind them were you can sit down and talk and resolve the situation. At least not short term.
As for the “ineffective french governments”, well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Some of these people are in this situation by their own account. When you have a father who never finished or even went to school and he came from colonized country to work in France, and he worked in the worst possible jobs (by his own choice, as in France you need a diploma to do anything better), I don’t see many of their kids going far away with school either.
And now they want a way out of this situation and poverty? What the French government is to do? Give them free money? Sorry, but this ain’t gonna happen in a capitalistic society.
Here’s the thing. These immigrants are very much alike the Greeks and Turks that live in Germany (account for about 4-5 million people altogether). Many of these Greeks have BORN in Germany, and yet they feel Greek. Most of them are doing pretty well job-wise, but if they weren’t, that wouldn’t be Germany’s fault. It would be theirs, for taking the decision to move to a country where education is the DRIVING force of getting a better job. Especially in the ’60s, the Greeks who moved to Germany (almost half of the Greek population did), went to school for 0 to 3 years overall. They could barely read. My grand father went to Switzerland, he never learned to read. My grandmother went to Aachen, Germany (working as janitor), she went to school only 1 year (just enough to do learn to read the numbers). My also illiterate uncle went to Paris (worked in a car factory).
The situation is the same with these french immigrants. It’s just that in their case, they never made it rich, like most Greeks did in abroad — mostly by working hard in factories and restaurants, day and night, for many years. And they never made it rich, because their children never fucking finished school. At least all Greeks that got born in Germany, have had very good education. They all finished high school and learned a profession.
When I was in Germany in 1992 (I was just 19 at the time, had finished high school), I was also working in the worst possible jobs: cleaning shit and working shifts on filthy restaurants. I was an immigrant. But it was my fucking choice to move there, just like the fathers of these rioters were. Then, I got to my right mind, went back to Greece and went to college. And voila! A whole new world opened in front of me, I got a good programming job *immediately* after graduation as I was second in my class. And instead of cleaning shit and eating just plain bread for dinner, I was making now $2000 per month (that was very good salary at the time). If I instead did not have decided to go back to college and get that programming diploma, I would still be cleaning up shit and live in poverty. But no. I made a life for myself, a life that I could not think it was possible. I DO feel rich today, as you pointed out. I have everything I want, literally (well, except a baby :). But my childhood and early young life, was very hard on me. But I changed all that. I made it.
No, Thom. I don’t think there is a major problem of racism in France. What there is, is a lack of a plan to “force” these kids to stay in school and learn to do something useful to society. That’s the only fault I give to the french government. None else. Everything else, is the rioter’s fault and it only lives in their little sick mind who take pleasure burning other people’s properties.
Bringing the army might indeed escalate the situation, but the current situation ain’t good either. The police should start firing at the first sight of someone starting a fire to a car. If it was one of my children that was doing that, I would shoot him myself. End of story.
Comment by Eugenia — November 7, 2005 @ 8:59 pm
I’m not gonna repeat my points over and over again, Eugenia. You are blaming the people themselves for having social problems, French sociologists blame it on the French government and the general lack of acceptance for these Frenchmen and women.
I’m sorry, but the choice who to believe is quickly made. I prefer to base my opinions on experts. That’s why I ask you which PDA to buy.
Comment by Administrator — November 7, 2005 @ 9:08 pm
>French sociologists blame it on the French government and the >general lack of acceptance for these Frenchmen and women.
These people would be more accepted in the society if they were USEFUL people. The society is a lot like the Darwin evolution: it spits out the garbage.
How can you “accept” someone when he has not finished school, knows barely how to read, and his main hobby — in many occasions– involves drugs?
Sorry Thom, but these “french sociologists” need a shake up too. Maybe a burning of their car would help them see the real root of the problem.
Comment by Eugenia — November 7, 2005 @ 9:22 pm
How can you “accept” someone when he has not finished school, knows barely how to read, and his main hobby — in many occasions– involves drugs?
THAT is the ENTIRE point! THEY AREN’T DROPOUTS! THAT is what these socioligists are saying! They STUDIED the matter, and yet YOU think you know better then people who LEARNED for this for YEARS!
I’m sorry Eugenia, but sometimes you must look beyond pure emotions and first kneejerk reactions. I can do that; my FIRST response to this matter was EXACTLY like yours– then I delved deeper into the matter, and lo and behold, I found out things weren’t as black and white as I thought them to be.
You should do the same. Acting on emotions is exactly what this world DOES NOT need. By giving in to your anger, and whishing these people dead, you are NO BETTER than the actual rioters, Eugenia. Bear that in mind.
Comment by Administrator — November 7, 2005 @ 9:37 pm
>THEY AREN’T DROPOUTS!
French people I know, say they are. And even if they aren’t, I don’t care. What they are doing, is just not right.
>whishing these people dead, you are NO BETTER than the actual rioters, Eugenia.
I don’t wish them dead. I wish them to stop burning other people’s properties and killing people who try to protect what’s their own. I am not the one with the hooligan behavior here.
I will ask you this:
When was the last time they actually had a PEACEFUL demonstration of their gripes in front of the PM’s office?
Right. They never did.
I rest my case.
Comment by Eugenia — November 7, 2005 @ 9:48 pm
The mullahs and other islamo fascists in Europe and elsewhere love Thom and his ilk. Thom is just regurgitating the same message they spew out. Good job Thom.
Comment by Lumbergh — November 9, 2005 @ 12:50 am
You’re American, right? Why should I take you seriously…
Next.
Comment by Administrator — November 9, 2005 @ 5:57 am
You Europeans don’t take yourselves seriously unless your busy inventing fascim, marxism, and world wars. But continue your appeasement mentality, the mullahs love it Thom. It’ll be fun watching Euroimplosion.
Comment by Lumbergh — November 9, 2005 @ 12:22 pm
Right, I guess that’s why there’s so much poverty in the US.
I guess that’s why there’s so much crime in the US
I guess that’s why there are so many murders and violent crimes in the US.
I guess that’s why the US government is flat-broke and doesn’t have one penny to spend.
I guess that’s why the whole world hates the US.
Lumbergh, you’re a moron. You have probably never even left the state of Missouri. You go watch FoxNews now. You’re boring me.
Comment by Administrator — November 9, 2005 @ 6:49 pm
Speaking of poverty Thom…this might interest you. Ever heard of Sabine Herald?
Comment by Lumbergh — November 10, 2005 @ 9:55 am
Actually, that should be Sabine, Herald of Liberty, but the other site is good too. Wise up and get with the program.
Comment by Lumbergh — November 10, 2005 @ 10:07 am
You are so full of shit, Lumbfruwkessjnbfiey, that you forgot that I can read French pretty well. The organization you linked to, Liberté Chérie, is an organization that is in just about everything the opposite of the American Nazi… err, Republican party. Liberté Chérie is a Libertarian organization, so it supports the legalization of drugs, euthanesia, gambling, prosititution, etc.
Isn’t that just about anything the Republican party despises?
But, please, go on, it’s always fun to see someone make a complete idiot out of himself (oh and by the way, you can go on to send spam messages with fake email addresses to this blog, but they are alll caught and automaticallly deleted).
The fact that LC is Libertarian makes them oppose taxes in almost any form. Hence, the article you linked to critizes European tax policies. It’s like asking a die-hard Celtic fan who’s going to win the Old Firm.
Idiot.
Comment by Administrator — November 10, 2005 @ 11:35 am
Hello moron, why are you bringing up republicans? I know that group is libertarian.
Why don’t you comment on the actual article, or are you too busy buying into the bolshevik propaganda that the statists spoon feed you?
Comment by Lumbergh — November 11, 2005 @ 4:05 am
The fact that LC is Libertarian makes them oppose taxes in almost any form. Hence, the article you linked to critizes European tax policies. It’s like asking a die-hard Celtic fan who’s going to win the Old Firm.
Libertarians are not opposed to all taxes. Pull your head out of your ass - or not. I’m sure the statists love you idiots being dumb and happy.
P.S. I’m not part of the Thomas Howlerda fanboy club so didn’t know you spoke french.
Comment by Lumbergh — November 11, 2005 @ 4:18 am