France Riot Watch: New Riots Monday Night
Youths listen to Claude Dilain, the mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, a suburb east of Paris, during a gathering to call for an halt to urban violence, Monday, Nov. 7, 2005. The urban unrest that is sweeping through France began Oct. 27 in this low-income Paris suburb after the deaths of two teenagers of Mauritanian and Tunisian origin. A 61-year-old man hurt in the violence died of his wounds, the first fatality in 11 days of unrest that has shocked the country, police said Monday.
The ASSociated Press has Rioters Set Fire to Bus in Southern France
Rioters in the southern city of Toulouse set fire to an empty bus Monday evening, then pelted police with firebombs and rocks, an official said. A 61-year-old man died of wounds sustained in the spreading violence, the first fatality in 12 days of civil unrest that has shocked the country.
The rioters stopped the bus and ordered the driver to get out, then set the vehicle afire, said Francis Soutric, chief of staff at the regional prefecture in Toulouse. No passengers were inside. Clashes broke out when riot police arrived on the scene and officers responded with tear gas, he said.
The new violence came after rioting by French youths spread to 300 towns.
As urban unrest was reported in neighboring Belgium and Germany, the French government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm. One riot-hit town in suburban Paris said it was preparing to enforce a curfew.
An enforceable curfew seems to be a reasonable response prior to a declaration of Martial Law.
Where has the French government been?
Firemen tackle a burning car that had been set alight in Strasbourg’s northern suburb of Cronenbourg November 7, 2005. Rioters shot at police and torched more than 1,400 cars in the worst violence since unrest erupted in France’s poor suburbs 11 days ago.
One Comment
Marvey
1. How come this kind of non-sense doesn’t happen in the United States, the supposed “Cold” Country? (It does on perhaps a 1-2 day scale)
2. Doesn’t the frenchman who once said to me while I lived in Santa Cruz, California: “You Americans don’t take care of your poor, you will have a revolution soon!” look extremely foolish right now? Or did said frenchman never take the highway exit off-ramps just right out of Pari?
4. How come Arab/African Frenchmen who acknowledge the contributions of Asterix, speak french exactly the same way that Jack Chiraq does, and embrace the ideals of republic/state, are not treated the same way as white Frenchman?
5. I though France had always advertised itself as a non-racist state, that if you embraced the culture, you would be treated as an equal? At least this is what I was taught by a Spaniard high school French teacher. Isn’t that statement all bullshit / french propaganda? Aren’t many frenchmen actually quite racist? Even more so than the supposedly more “racist” Englishmen?
6. Why do Mexicans who work on my lawn and garden in the United States seem quite happy and not inclined to riot for 2 weeks (or perhaps longer)