Paris is burning.Follow

Rioting Spreads to 20 Towns Around Paris Rioters Shoot at Police, Torch Car Dealerships, Buses in Eighth Day of Violence in Paris Suburbs

I find it baffling what little coverage these riots in Paris are getting from the mainstream U.S. news services, until now. Sure it has been mentioned a little during the course of the week, here and there and in between the "Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes: 'The Dienatics duet'" and "How to trick your man into eating Tex-Mex" headlines. I finally saw my first real snippet of footage on CNN last night before bed, but eight days of rioting in a major European city and we barely hear about it?

If this happened in New York city, the whole world would be glued to the media coverage, laughing and ridiculing the incompetent Bush administration. On second thought, nevermind they do that anyway, but it seems to me that this riot in Paris should be a much bigger news story than it currently is.

that's why the BBC is my primary news source

well, that and it was the default one in firefox

Dokken rocks.

This town i'm in can't take no more
Decadance is silly
You were my woman
Why'd you have to be so hard and cold

(chorus 1)
Paris is burning
Want to see it from afar
Paris is burning
Want to get to where you are

My life's in ruin
The girl i love
She's far away
The distant fire
Brings memories of the love
That i once knew
Where are you now
Been looking all around
And i can't stay
Help me now
I can't stay


Much more before i fade away

(chorus 2)
Paris is burning
Want to see it from afar
Paris is burning
Get back where you are

(solo)

I can't believe
You'd throw it all away
You know you played me for a fool
I'm leavin' now
This time you know
That i'll be gone for good, yeah

(chorus 2)
Paris is burning, paris
Paris is burning
Paris is burning
Want to see it from afar
Paris is burning
Paris (fade out)

I was watching the news reports about this. The saddest part was when that girl prostitute died on the barricades without telling the student that she loved him.

I was watching CBC newsworld (because I am a political dork and since hockey wasnt on) and I was watching a piece on this where they were interviewing a french govt type guy who I cant recall who he was.

The language he used to describe the people, the neighbourhoods and was pretty shocking and was decrying how real french people have to put up with these shiftless immigrants etc. It was more than a little disgusting.

The heavy influx of Muslims into industrialized Europe is really causing the problems however it may be being portrayed elsewhere. These Muslims are people generally there because of a need for employment, but otherwise refuse to assimilate into society, prefering to remain apart and holding to their Middle Eastern traditions. In and of itself that might not be a problem, but the more radical segment of Islam is intrenched in the poorer of these people, which in turn, produces friction and/or rioting.

Couple this with the generally accepted but little talked about racism, errr, nationalism, this leads directly to an underclass that is by and large militant, sulky, and ripe for violence.

Laughingly, for as much as the "sophisticated" French look down their noses at the supposed fumblings of Bush et al, they have a massive blind spot when it comes to their own domestic and foreign policy failings. Years of colonization followed by corporate paternalism have lead to the internal strife that we are seeing (or not in the case of the US media) on the news.

Totem

Edited, Thu Nov 3 18:16:41 2005 by Totem

Don't worry, my fine Limey friend. Even a blind black pig with large genitals finds an acorn every once in a while.

Totem

They can do what they want, as long as its what the US wants too, or they might get invaded and their leader replaced by a puppet govt. controlled by the US.

I haven't really researched the French policy on immigration because I can't be bothered, but I'd say that this problem is of their own making. They're too busy trying to police the USA's behavior of policing the world to be bothered to take care of their own populace.

I wouldn't mind seeing a good French Revolution. Not because I despise the French or anything like that, but because they always manage to think up wonderful atrocities in that country. The guillotine has been sitting and rusting since '77.

Umm, wouldn't that be finds a truffle?

The reason France cannot get rid of these malcontents, Nabraben, is because the rioters are largely the children of naturalized Middle Easterners, thereby having full citizenship in France. The problem stems from the social ills originating with elected officials/Francophiles whose domestic policies don't quite jibe with the constitutional ideals the Republic is founded upon. The prevailing institutional attitudes (the police and the public's deeply held belief that France should be for the French) sets the two groups at an impasse.

On one hand, the French want France to resemble this country of myth where liberte, egalite, and fraternite means everybody willingly behaves "French," and on the other hand is a large segment of the population (brought in for cheap labor) who view the "French" way of doing things as being decadent and morally corrupt. The second group's children are caught in between having few jobs, little education, and Western appetites in juxtaposition with traditional Muslim disapproval for things that smack of excessive freedom and independent thinking.

That, in a nutshell, encapsulates the core difficulties in correcting the issues facing France and it's growing Muslim population.

Totem


Edited, Fri Nov 4 14:46:01 2005 by Totem