Skybird
10-15-06, 10:01 AM
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20061013-083614-1432r
Turf conscious bloggers in Paris' rundown, mostly Muslim, suburban immigrant housing estates rival in violent messages that threaten to beat senseless and even kill any intruder caught in "our ghetto." Almost every word is misspelled, in both argot slang and pidgin French. And these are not empty threats. An average of 14 policemen a day are injured in bloody clashes with jobless youngsters.
France's Interior Ministry said 2,500 police officers had been "wounded" this year.
(...)
The chaotic conditions in suburbs like Clichy-sous-Bois, Montfermeil and St. Denis have grown progressively worse since the nationwide Muslim riots in November 2005 that torched 10,000 vehicles.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin recently criticized as "overdrawn" President Bush's frequent reference to the "global war on terror." But the Iraq war did not appear to be part of the combustible mix in Muslim "ghettos" outside Paris. Despair, organized crime, and hatred of authority are its principal ingredients.
For the United States, Islamist extremism is seen as an external problem. For the Europeans, it's internal and far more complex than a war on terrorism. Muslim minorities are spawning rightwing extremism.
(...)
In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen's far right National Front appears to have opted for a can't-lick-'em-join-'em strategy, a rapprochement with France's large immigrant Muslim community -- with undertones of anti-Semitism. Le Pen's reasoning appears to be the recognition that Islamicization is in France to stay with 25 percent of France's under 20 population Muslim (40 percent in some cities), 2nd and 3rd generation North Africans. FN's tough stance on immigration is tempered by support for Arab and Islamist causes in the Middle East (Hamas and Hezbollah are two favorites). There are an estimated 6 to 8 million Muslims among France's 62 million and Islam is now France's second religion. Mosques are well attended on Fridays; churches aren't on Sundays. France's prison inmates are over 50 percent Muslim.
(...)
The metropolitan Paris police tabulated 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day in the past 30 days throughout the country.
(...)
The French far left has also gone fishing in these troubled Islamic waters. One new leftist political star is Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, a hugely popular black comedian who appears to be a Gallic Louis Farrakhan. He dismisses civic educational programs about the Holocaust as "memory pornography." He was recently fined 5,000 Euros for comparing Jews to slave-traders. In a television sketch, he gave a Nazi salute while dressed as an orthodox Jew to denounce what he saw as "fascist Israeli policies."
Turf conscious bloggers in Paris' rundown, mostly Muslim, suburban immigrant housing estates rival in violent messages that threaten to beat senseless and even kill any intruder caught in "our ghetto." Almost every word is misspelled, in both argot slang and pidgin French. And these are not empty threats. An average of 14 policemen a day are injured in bloody clashes with jobless youngsters.
France's Interior Ministry said 2,500 police officers had been "wounded" this year.
(...)
The chaotic conditions in suburbs like Clichy-sous-Bois, Montfermeil and St. Denis have grown progressively worse since the nationwide Muslim riots in November 2005 that torched 10,000 vehicles.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin recently criticized as "overdrawn" President Bush's frequent reference to the "global war on terror." But the Iraq war did not appear to be part of the combustible mix in Muslim "ghettos" outside Paris. Despair, organized crime, and hatred of authority are its principal ingredients.
For the United States, Islamist extremism is seen as an external problem. For the Europeans, it's internal and far more complex than a war on terrorism. Muslim minorities are spawning rightwing extremism.
(...)
In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen's far right National Front appears to have opted for a can't-lick-'em-join-'em strategy, a rapprochement with France's large immigrant Muslim community -- with undertones of anti-Semitism. Le Pen's reasoning appears to be the recognition that Islamicization is in France to stay with 25 percent of France's under 20 population Muslim (40 percent in some cities), 2nd and 3rd generation North Africans. FN's tough stance on immigration is tempered by support for Arab and Islamist causes in the Middle East (Hamas and Hezbollah are two favorites). There are an estimated 6 to 8 million Muslims among France's 62 million and Islam is now France's second religion. Mosques are well attended on Fridays; churches aren't on Sundays. France's prison inmates are over 50 percent Muslim.
(...)
The metropolitan Paris police tabulated 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day in the past 30 days throughout the country.
(...)
The French far left has also gone fishing in these troubled Islamic waters. One new leftist political star is Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, a hugely popular black comedian who appears to be a Gallic Louis Farrakhan. He dismisses civic educational programs about the Holocaust as "memory pornography." He was recently fined 5,000 Euros for comparing Jews to slave-traders. In a television sketch, he gave a Nazi salute while dressed as an orthodox Jew to denounce what he saw as "fascist Israeli policies."