I may be mis-remembering here, but I think Watts was an order of magnitude worse than this…so I don’t think the comparison is quite fair to the French. For one thing, afaik, no one has died in France yet due to the riots. And while Watts was confined pretty much to South LA, IIRC there were hundreds of buildings and cars burned…and that whole death thing (hundreds if memory serves). I don’t think these riots come anywhere close. Of course, Watts happened in '65 and these are happening today, so I suppose one could extrapolate what a similar riot today would look like in the US.
Since nobody has addressed this answer…how’sabout issuing an order stating that anyone out after 8pm gets shot? Then sweeping the streets? Too harsh? How about instead using the round that the Brits used back in the 60’s in Ulster? You know, the 40mm oak baton fired from an M79 grenade launcher? The one that would break a half dozen legs before stopping? I have an old (and for 50 years now, unused) M1A4 man portable flamethrower which I’m willing to donate. All the French government has to do is fax me a copy of it’s C&R, and I’ll have it in the mail tomorrow.
Aparently the islamo-facists in France didn’t get the memo about Liberty, Fraternity, Property.
Yikes. I’d not heard anything about that, and a very cursory google search turns up only some hits about Ivory Coast. You wouldn’t have a cite, would you?
I don’t think anyone’s made a direct connection, but I wouldn’t be surprised if those events are adding to the frustration of many of the immigrant folks.
In my not so humble opinon the liberals here in America have the same opinion of France that they have of continental Europe in general; about the same opinion as that held by the Republicans. But because France pissed off the Republicans enough that they renamed fucking Freedom Fries for Christ sakes, they are now trying to tie France to the liberal democrats… Just another made up example of how bad, un-American and Christian hating we Democrats are.
“Those stupid democrats, they should all move to France they love them so much… Not us, we stand for Freedom and we kiss with our mouth closed.”
Tell you what. You name a more right wing electable* French politician and I will elaborate on why he is conservative**
*I know a lot of French people who held their nose and voted against Le Pen not for Chirac
Many on these boards are quite eager to point out that Europe as a whole is much to the left of the US, such that an American liberal would be quite moderate in Europe; the purpose of mentioning this is usually to argue that American conservatives are wacky, kooky extremists. It’s a touch simplistic, but the point is accurate as far as it goes.
In that light, it’s a bit absurd to then call Chirac a “conservative” as if his domestic policies were in any way similar to “conservatives” here in the US. The reality is that a truly “conservative” (in the American sense) administration is unelectable in France and has been for ages – which is why blaming “conservatism” is idiotic.
Not, BTW, that I think you can blame “liberalism” per se, either. As usual, brainless ideological partisanship is a stupid way of approaching the topic.
My point was that asterion seemed to me to be talking about the US idea of what a conservative is and not a French one. My Euro idea of the term conservative is to be right of center within your countries definition of what that means.
In Ireland we have a right of center gov. at the moment* but our political center involves a lot more State aid to the poor, medical benefits, State and semi-State companies etc. than the US model, as do the vast majority of European countries.
To describe Chirac as anything but Conservative from a French perspective means that you don’t know what you’re talking about. It is something that I shouldn’t need to prove IMO to asterion as s/he seemed to know something about it when s/he said
We always have because of our local politics. When we got our independence the right wing nationalist party that controlled 90+% of the vote fractured into two fractions and fought a Civil War. Afterwards the same two right wing divisions became the main parties in the country. Only relatively recently did left wing parties enter the fold and still to this day their best hope is to be a minor party in a coalition.
It goes without saying that the OP is fucking insulting.
Anyway, people have already explained what’s going on. As to why the French authorities haven’t done anything, perhaps they think that a gung-ho sweep the streets option would only make it worse?
At some point, the riots are going to run out of steam. Meantime, I hope Chirac et al realise that all that La Belle France nonsense isn’t making immigrants feel any more welcome.
(Although in some ways, there’s nothing more traditional and patriotic than riots in Paris - perhaps someone should make a musical out of it.)
Anyway, it’s not only the French who’ve had problems with rioting:
Are you Bush in asterion clothing? He doesn’t seem to know or care about politics or politicians anywhere else.
How can you not care about what is happening in the world around you? Obviously you can’t change it or influence it but how can you say that you don’t care?
I can’t change anything in France, just like I couldn’t change anything in New Orleans, just like I can’t change anything in Iraq but I am bloody interested and I care.
I care because the animosity on the streets of Paris has legs, legs that will make that animosity spread. The way that the French govt addresses their issues is up to them BUT it does affect the rest of us. To say you don’t care is scary.
Saddam proved that it is scary to not care what the rest of the world thinks. Bush showed it is not a good thing.
