French rioters offer a price for calm

French rioters last night called for the scalp of the French interior minister as the price for ending 10 nights of disturbances.

As France’s prime minster summoned key ministers to a crisis meeting to determine a political response to the riots that have spread from Paris to other cities, the young immigrant-descended rioters began to show signs of organising via mobile phone and internet sites.

Their target is interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose hard-line rhetoric has become the focus for much of the anger that has set the socially ignored suburbs alight each night.

“Now we are the ones chasing you with a hose,” declared one weblog referring to Sarkozy’s promise to cleanse the streets of scum. With insurance companies estimating the damage at more than £4.6 million so far, France braced itself for another night of destruction.

http://www.sundayherald.com/52735

...it seems the French population, immigrant or not, once again show a knack in using the concept of "direct action".

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and don't whine in churches to put up with it.

shittier.

They're empowered to negotiate?

And the scum think that by triggering a resignation, they have some sort of honor and dignity?

If they're drug dealers, they should be turned in by community members and the witnesses protected. If they're Muslims, they should be denounced as apostate until they turn themselves in and stop defaming Islam.

Some revolution. Burning buses, schools, and assaulting the disabled that can't flee quickly enough. How embarrassing and juvenile.

There would be quite a lot of people living their lives...

Who needs foreign adventures when you have these domestic problems on the horizon?

Amazing.

Maybe not rascist but sheer neglect.

Good lessons here for those who pay attention.

Similar dispossesed minority, similar poverty, similar destruction. Waiting for NO and other cities here to implode when more budget cuts go through. We are only one hungry child away...

Sarkozy out. I am sure half of the population agrees with them.

hands over Sarkozy head.

This governement was a difficult alliance between two people who both want to succeed to Chirac (de Villepin and Sarkozy). If De Villepin can see an overture to fire his rival without getting his base mad, he will (and Chirac will only be too happy to follow).

Why not get out the guillotine, and for the mob's pleasure, do it live in the suburbs? Oh heck, why not just disband the government, and let the mob rule for a while? Sarko's an asshole, but there is due process. What if they want Chirac's head next?

so I'm not surprised they want his scalp. Good on them, France will be better for having him out of future leadership equations.

Sarkozy's posturing is not likely to work in this situation

Sounds like a nice guy.

Reducing a very complex problem to just one person.

I am believe that Sarkozy 's hardline approach antagonizes French Arabs but the problems extends beyond policing policies.

Mr. Sardozy isn't single-handedly responsible for unemployment and housing segregation.

where you never knew the person two places up or two places down. You take out one guy, not only will you not know anymore than three other people (if that person succumbs to torture and reveals the identity of his or her contacts) but someone else will slot right in where that person came from.

That was the lesson of the Battle of Algiers.

With the government, everyone knows who has which roles. This guy they want out is a cabinet minister and his duties are known to everyone. It's perfectly clear how his authority cascades down and impacts on the life of everyone below him, right down to the citizens on the street. If he resigns, you can replace him with someone with better polices, which will make the lives of everyone beneath him better.

I guess that was another lesson of the Battle of Algiers. Democracy is better than imperialism.

Before the war "Iraq" was essentially reduced to Saddam Hussein.

"Operation Iraqi Freedom" aka "regime change" was premised (by some) on the notion that 'democracy is better than a dictator'.

We're hearing similar reductionist approaches as the U.S. "prepares" for post-Castro Cuba.

I'm sure the organizational structure is an important and I don't believe anyone knows for sure what the organizational structure of the rebels in Iraq is.

But one thing for sure, Arab people strongly believe in self-determination

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That we can draw comparisons between this unrest and the horrible agony that was the war in Algeria. Hell - you cannot enter a bookstore in France without being greeted by at least one table full of that grotesque nightmare, replete with graphic photographs of atrocity and first-person accounts of same.

The sons and daughters of that unspeakably horrible conflict now inhabit France from the cruel suburbs of Paris to les pentes de la Croix Rousse. They carry the scars of their history with them - their families broken by violence, death and destruction. It is no wonder that this is happening -

"...for the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the heads of their children."

We really should have done things in Iraq like the french. After all, they sure have their country under control and they certainly know how to deal with radical muslims. When will the "car toll" tally start in france to keep track of how many cars have been torched by muslims in france? It's already over 4,000 the past 11 days.

I guess people will be next. It already seems to be spreading outside of Paris.

any of the languages of the nations to which they emigrate, from Morocco, Algeria, Indonesia, Suriname, etc. That they want to have sharia rather than the laws of their new land. IOW, assimilation ain't their bag.

Everyone agrees that they are French born and educated. And they aren't calling for sharia either. There probably is some Muslim somewhere in France calling for sharia, but it hasn't been connected with the riots.

The kids have had a lot of practise at stealing cars, arson etc. Recent events have just turned up the volume so that the rest of French society has begun to notice. If it was not for their race and religion I doubt if I could distinguish some of the French 'hoodies' I have seen interviewed on French TV from the white working class 'chav' equivalents who populate the sink estates on the outskirts of so many British towns and cities.