Pirate's Cove

I’m sure day 4 should be starting in a few hours, since France is 7 hours ahead of the Eastern seaboard. I wonder if these riots are going to become the national sport of the immigrants to France, quite of few who are illegal and are Muslims from countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The Pres is not a happy camper

President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Wednesday to bring those who shot at police officers to justice as a wave of rioting by angry youths in the suburbs north of Paris showed signs of ebbing.

“What has happened is absolutely unacceptable,” Sarkozy said after he was whisked to a bedside meeting with a wounded police captain upon his return from a three-day state visit to China. Firing weapons at the police, he said, “has a name: attempted murder.”

“We will put in the necessary resources to find those responsible,” Sarkozy said. “It is not something that we can tolerate, regardless of the drama of the deaths of these two youths on a motorcycle.”

Sarkozy has a background of zero tolerance and tough actions against disorderly conduct and other law breakers. I think it does beg the question, will those in the slums fight back and riot more till they are finally quashed?

The current wave of violence was sparked Sunday night after two boys, aged 15 and 16, were killed in a traffic accident with police in the rough Parisian suburb of Villiers-le-Bel. As in 2005, gangs of young men and teenagers have taken to lobbing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police, setting alight cars and government buildings, including a library and a preschool.

But what distinguishes the current situation from those two years ago has been the frequent use of hunting rifles by rioters – a factor that has transformed the violence into something akin to “urban guerilla warfare” according to at least one police union official.

Around 80 officers were injured on Monday night, 10 of them by buckshot and pellets, according to the police.

Interestingly, like the previous riots, the word Muslim is being avoided like the Black Plague.

While the situation may have calmed near Paris , there were reports Tuesday night that a riot had erupted in the southern French city of Toulouse . The police there said vandals had set fire to about 20 cars in a working-class area of town and attempted to burn down a library.

Spreading? Will it continue? Let’s hope not.

In Villiers-le-Bel on Tuesday night, clusters of young men stood by the charred timbers of the town’s police station, laughing and surveying the damage.

Cem, 18, of Turkish origin, declined to give his name because he feared police reprisals. But he and his friend Karim, of Algerian descent, said they both had participated in rioting over the past two days.

“That’s just the beginning,” Cem said. “This is a war. There is no mercy. We want two cops dead.”

I’m thinking the cops will win.

Naim Masoud, 39, a teaching assistant in Villiers-le-Bel, said that, in her school, even 8-year-old children talked about racism and discrimination by the police.

“It will take a lot more than riot police to cure this neighborhood,” she said. “These children feel like foreigners. It is inexcusable what they are doing, but the seeds are deep.”

They often are foreigners, and many are illegal. And, like many here in the USA, will continue to feel discriminated against and treated as foreigners, as they make little attempt to become part of the culture of the country.