France's "Punk Jihad" Riots Worst Than 2005

The riots among the Muslim youth in the “suburbs” of Paris promise to be worse than 2005. The rioters are more violent and the response from France’s Interior Minister has been anything but decisive. This from the NYT today:

The number of police officers injured during clashes by French youths in a suburb north of Paris rose to 86 after a second bout of violence overnight in which 60 officers were hurt, including six who are in serious condition, police officials said.

Of the six in serious condition, four were hurt as a result of gunfire, said Francis Debuire, a representative of the General Union of Police Officers in the district where the fighting took place. One of the four lost an eye and another officer’s shoulder was shattered by a bullet after some of the youths used shotguns as well as firebombs and rocks.

Police union officials expressed concern that the violence was more severe than the fighting that had occurred in the Paris suburbs over three weeks of rioting in 2005. “The violence over the last days has been worse than two years ago in terms of its intensity,” Mr. Debuire said.

. . . Among the marchers, a young man who identified himself as Cem, 18, but who refused to give his full name, said: “This is war. There is no mercy. We want at least two policemen dead.”

Police officials said the government had ordered as many as 130 extra officers in addition to the 450 officers who confronted the youths on Monday night, and officers were being brought in from across France as reinforcements.

As in the 2005 riots, the youths on Sunday and Monday nights were attacking the police mostly with firebombs, rocks and other projectiles, but this time they also had guns. Mr. Debuire said youths used shotguns. . . .

Read the here. This from PJM’s Nidra Poller, gives a bit more background:

Monday 11 pm

Violence is spreading from Villiers le Bel to a dozen neighboring communities. At least twenty policemen have been injured so far tonight (forty injured last night according to the latest figures), some of them critically. The insurgents are using firebombs, iron rods, baseball bats, and firing buckshot. Journalists are attacked, their cameras are stolen. The mayor of Villiers le Bel is running a crisis center from an undisclosed location. Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie is strangely absent, silent, or ineffectual. This is not the way it is supposed to be happening in the Sarkozy government. Don’t be surprised if Alliot-Marie is replaced early next year.

. . . Police investigators and several eyewitnesses corroborate the patrolmen’s version of the accident. The police car was going at a normal speed, no sirens, no hot pursuit. The mini-motorcycle came down a side street at high speed and made a left turn, crashing directly into the police car. The police remained on the scene for approximately twenty to thirty minutes until the fire department ambulance arrived.

President Sarkozy, on a state visit to China, issued a plea for calm. It must have seemed quite logical from where he’s standing… but it’s totally inaudible here on the receiving end.

Monday morning

The tally on Sunday’s punk jihad outburst is heavy and rising.

. . . According to concurrent reports, the rage broke out immediately. The police claim the motorcycle ran into their patrol car at an intersection; the enraged know better—the police car in hot pursuit of the innocent boys, Moushin and Larami, smashed into their motorcycle. Moushin’s uncle was outraged because the bodies were left lying in the fire station. But it seems that the forces that came to pick them up had to turn back because they were attacked. The boys had gone out to do a little bit of rodeo, a favorite sport in the banlieue projects. Le Parisien posted You Tube videos filmed by reckless kids.

Reckless, yes, but when they get wrecked it’s the fault of the police, the Peugeot dealership, and McDonald’s.

The euphemism for these enclaves — “quartier sensible”—bears a nugget of truth if correctly translated as “touchy neighborhoods.” Villiers le Bel is in the administrative district of Sarcelles / Garges-les-Gonesses about 20 km north of Paris. Not so long ago Sarcelles was the home sweet home of Jewish refugees from North Africa; today it is their nightmare. They endure constant attacks and harassment from the permanently enraged African-Arab-Muslim residents who live cheek by jowl with their still neat clean streets.

Socialist leader François Hollande is demanding the truth, the whole truth and of course the right truth on this incident—it has to be the fault of the police, the fault of the brutal Sarkozy government, the fault of deaf ears turned to the suffering of youths in this, the touchiest of touchy neighborhoods. . . .

Read the entire post at PJM. France has an incredble problem with its immigrant Muslim community that it needs to solve. Sarkozy has discussed cutting off "foreign" - i.e., Wahhabi / Salafi - involvement in existing Muslim community prior to his election. To say that sounds like too little is a bit of an understatement.

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