Matrix Code - French Riots

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This has been going on for a while now and seems to be getting worse. Rather than try to sum up everything I am going to post an article from FoxNews.

PARIS — A man who was beaten by an attacker while trying to extinguish a trash-can fire during riots north of Paris has died of his injuries, becoming the first fatality since the urban unrest started 11 days ago, a police official said Monday. Youths overnight injured three dozen officers and burned more than 1,400 vehicles.

Apparent copycat attacks spread to other European cities for the first time, with five cars torched outside Brussels' main train station, police in the Belgian capital said.

Australia, Austria and Britain became the latest countries to advise their citizens to exercise care in France, joining the United States and Russia in warning tourists to stay away from violence-hit areas.

Alain Rahmouni, a national police spokesman, said the man who was beaten died at a hospital from injuries sustained in the attack, but he had no immediate details about the victim's age or his attacker.

The man was caught by surprise by an attacker after rushing out of his apartment building to put out the fire, Rahmouni said.

Clashes around France left 36 police injured, and vandals burned 1,408 vehicles overnight Sunday-Monday, setting a new high for overnight arson and violence since the rioting started Oct. 27, national police chief Michel Gaudin said.

The mayhem started as an outburst of anger in suburban Paris housing projects and has fanned out nationwide among disaffected youths, mostly of Muslim or African origin, to become France's worst civil unrest in over a decade.

Attacks overnight were reported in 274 towns and police made 395 arrests, Gaudin said.

"This spread, with a sort of shock wave spreading across the country, shows up in the number of towns affected," Gaudin said, noting that the violence appeared to be sliding away from its flash point in the Parisian suburbs and worsening elsewhere.

It was the first time police were injured by weapons fire amid signs that rioters were deliberately seeking out clashes with police, officials said.

Among the injured police, 10 were injured by youths firing fine-grain birdshot in a late night clash in the southern Paris suburb of Grigny, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. Two were hospitalized but their lives were not in danger. One was wounded in the neck, the other in the legs.

The unrest began in the low-income Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, after the deaths of two teenagers of Mauritanian and Tunisian origin. The youths were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police in a power substation. They apparently thought they were being chased.

There have been 4,700 cars burned in France since the rioting began, and 1,200 suspects have been detained at least temporarily, Gaudin said.

The growing violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs, where many Africans and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair — fertile terrain for crime of all sorts as well as for Muslim extremists offering frustrated youths a way out.

France, with some 5 million Muslims, has the largest Islamic population in Western Europe.

Meanwhile, the government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm.

President Jacques Chirac promised stern punishment for those behind the attacks, making his first public address Sunday since the riots started.

"The law must have the last word," Chirac said after a security meeting with top ministers. France is determined "to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear, and they will be arrested, judged and punished."

France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, issued a fatwa, or religious decree. It forbade all those "who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others."

Arsonists burned two schools and a bus in the central city of Saint-Etienne and its suburbs, and two people were injured in the bus attack. Churches were set ablaze in northern Lens and southern Sete, he said. The extent of damage was not immediately clear.

In Colombes in suburban Paris, youths pelted rocks at a bus, sending a 13-month-old child to the hospital with a head injury, Hamon said, while a daycare center was burned in Saint-Maurice, another Paris suburb.

Much of the youths' anger has focused on law-and-order Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who inflamed passions by referring to troublemakers as "scum."

In Strasbourg, youths stole a car and rammed it into a housing project, setting the vehicle and the building on fire.

"We'll stop when Sarkozy steps down," said the defiant 17-year-old driver of the car, who gave his name only as Murat. Under arrest, he and several others awaited a ride to the police station as smoke poured from the windows of the housing project behind them.

I really had no idea that things were this bad in France as far as the economy and the racial tension goes. The "Ugly American" part of me wants to laugh at France but another part of me is feeling pretty bad for how fucked up they are. I hope they find a way to get this situation under control and resolve some of these problems.

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Solution:
Step 1: Rally the army to all the places where these riots are going on. (This should have happened on night 2) You use anything resembling a gun (airgun, dartgun, whatever) or grenade (molotov cocktail), you get shot. I'm prepared to have tanks running through the streets.
Step 2: Those arrested with double nationalities are exported out of the nation to their other nation. Their french identity is revoked, and upon returning in France again, they will be send back immediately, after sitting out their lives in prison.
Step 3: if this approach is not working, a combination of armed forces will take over all hostile neighbourhoods, a curfew will be instated until the problem is resolved.
Step 4: Distribution of the ethnicities throughout france. You don't want to move? Pierre will see to it that you do under gunpoint.
Step 5: Special laws are instated in problem neighbourhoods. Any acts of vandalism in these region or attacks will result in maximum penalty of the law. In the mean time, to improve the regional distribution of people, the government will rent out/sell the seized apartments/houses at attractive prices.
Step 6: School programmes will be initiated aimed at teaching people acceptable ways of what to do when you are facing the many choices an adult is faced once done with college, and how to prevent social isolation and the following radicalisation.
Step 7: Kids from trouble neighbourhoods don't want to go to school? Pierre will take him there.
Step

Global debate about the position of the islam in western nations. Radical imams operating in Europe will not be send back to their countries, but trialed in the European nation for spreading hatred.
Step 9: Reduce prison costs to a level where it is acceptable. They don't need television or all kinds of luxuries. They gave them up when they broke the law.

This bullshit has been allowed to go on for way to far. You don't like democracy, we'll force it down your throat.

Mr U

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A little over stated in my opinion, but I agree with the base idea. They left Beiruit/Bosnia/Tunisia/Wherever the hell it was and moved to Europe then try to turn it into a mini 'home.' Not likely to go down well with the original residents, and is only likely to cause friction between the two groups. I don't know about France, but I do know that here in the UK, alot of the segregation is not government instigated but is brought about by the immigrant populations.

I also agree with your point about racial/religious hatred and the spreding of it by extremists. I don't feel however that the way to deal with it is by throwing the few who seek to perpetrate these attitudes in jail. All that ends up doing is semi-martyring them,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Some fictional Idiot

'Look they locked me up because I believe that Marvin the Martian is going to come back soon and save all the people who follow the way of the Warner Bros, killing all Disney Lovers. They fear the truth so try to bury it.'

Overstated but you get the point I hope.

Your point about resolving the initial problem again seems a little heavy handed. It may be the only solution but I suspect that all it would serve to do is further compound the problem untill such time as Paris becomes Baghdad part 2. Other solutions? I don't know. A military presence may be the way forward but I feel that tanks and Martial Law is not the best way forward and should really only be the last resort. Maybe the guy who's head they are asking for should step down. if he wants whats best for the city/country then surely his resignation may be it. Show them that democracy does actually work, again further disarming the extremist elements.

Location: The deadlights

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My family (Mom, Dad, Sis) and I were discussing this over the dinner table. My father thinks that this could be the start of World War III. He also says that the "old" Europe (Germany and France being major powers) will give way to a "new" Europe (Poland and England). (Being Polish myself, I find this extremely gratifying.) He believes that this stems from the Islamic immigrants being forced into ghetto areas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DonDaddy

The unrest began in the low-income Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois

See? France, according to my father, is a welfare state. The Islamic people get the jobs nobody else wants. Surprise! Havoc erupts.

-Snoopy

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Quote:

Maybe the guy who's head they are asking for should step down. if he wants whats best for the city/country then surely his resignation may be it. Show them that democracy does actually work, again further disarming the extremist elements.

I can see your point here, but that sets a very dangerous precedence. Riot in the streets for long enough and we will give you something to make you stop. It’s a good thought, but I doubt it will have your desired result. That is not how a Democracy works at any rate. If they don’t like him, vote him out. Or, urge the other leaders, in a peaceful manner, to have him removed. The rioting has become more about self-gratification then its original point, as all riots do. (with the possible exception of the WTO riots)

A resolution to the problem once it has reached this level is far too tricky for any current government to handle. Go too soft and many more people will be injured and die and no real deterrence against future unrest has been established. Go too hard and it only increases the divide. No, this problem should have been taken care of long ago but the government was far too busy worry about other things and now they are screwed.

"Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity."
- Irving Kristol

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Quote:

Originally Posted by DonDaddy

That makes sense. Now it is too late, and whilst I'm fairly certain that he wasn't the cause of this, he certainly hasn't helped, maybe he should be made to stand trial for incitement to hatred, or one of the other highly vague laws that seem to be coming into place at the minute all across Europe?

As to solutions to the situation now, according to news reports this morning the curfews seem to be helping matters slightly with news reports telling of a significant fall in the levels of violence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBC News

Rioting has continued in France for a 13th consecutive night, despite emergency powers aimed at restoring order coming into force.

More than 500 cars had been torched by 0400 (0300GMT), police said. Around 200 people were arrested.

But police said the levels of violence across the country were lower than the previous night.

The northern city of Amiens was the first to impose an overnight curfew under the new emergency plan.

The special decree giving local authorities and police emergency powers to deal with rioters came into force at midnight.

Two Paris suburbs, Savigny-sur-Orge and Le Raincy, as well as the historic city of Orleans, have already declared separate curfews not covered by the law.

Despite this, incidents were reported in several areas:

* The entire public transport network was shut down in the central-eastern city of Lyon after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a train station

* A gas-powered bus exploded in the suburbs of the south-western city of Bordeaux after it was hit by a Molotov cocktail

* Youths in the city of Toulouse threw firebombs at police and set fire to cars

Paris, where the rioting began nearly two weeks ago, was relatively calm with some isolated cases of arson and a dozen arrests, the police said.

Shortly before the decree came into effect, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, on a visit to Toulouse, said police were reporting a "fairly significant fall" in violence.

State of emergency

The emergency powers were approved in a special cabinet meeting earlier on Tuesday.

CURFEW LAW
Cabinet can declare state of emergency in all or part of the country
Regional leaders given exceptional powers to apply curfew
Breach of curfew could mean two-month jail sentence
Police can carry out raids on suspected weapons stockpiles
Interior minister can issue house-arrest warrants for those deemed dangerous to public safety
Public meeting places can be closed down
House searches possible day or night
Authorities can control media, film and theatre performances
Emergency can only be extended beyond 12 days if approved by parliament

They allow a state of emergency to be declared in defined areas, restricting the movement of people and vehicles.

Police are entitled to carry out house searches and ban public meetings.

Mr Sarkozy, who announced the measures, said: "The violent events that happened in our territory, and the people responsible [for the violence] will be arrested and punished".

But some opposition parties, and the French magistrates association, have described the measures as a danger to civil liberties.

Minors are subject to the law between 2200 and 0600 (2100 and 0500 GMT) unless accompanied by an adult, and are also banned from buying petrol.

The new emergency powers handed to local authorities have been invoked under a 1955 law.

The law was originally passed to combat violence in Algeria in its war of independence against France from 1954-62. It was also used in New Caledonia in 1985.

This is the first time the law has been implemented in mainland France.

It looks like the 2 people getting electrocuted has provided catalyst to open up a far bigger can of worms, and in the long term that can only be a good thing for the future of France, provided they don't make a complete cock of it.

Snoopy, your point is quite interesting, but, as a Brit I really don't see that happening. The inclusion of Poland, Turkey, the Czech republic and alot of the other former Eastern Bloc states could begin to provoke some change in European policy but I really don't see the way 'Europe' as a state works changing.

I also don't see there being a WW3 either, at least not to the same model as the previous world wars. I suspect that, should such a conflict arise it would be a religious or racially driven conflict, the current Paris situation writ large across all of Europe. There were some serious riots here in the UK a couple of years back of a similar nature, and if I remember rightly there were some in Germany not long back too. All it needs is a few dissidents with computers to liase over the net, plan these events simultaneously and Europe becomes a war zone, one that is like the current situation in Iraq that 'Military' tactics cannot deal with. The governments of Europe wouldn't dare bomb the suburbs of Paris or Birmingham, and even if they did it would only compound matters. It would be interesting to see how it was dealt with

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Ok now i know this is a stupid idea but i think that they should get a butt load of cargo heli's and pick up the efiel tower and hook it up with rockets, send it into the ghetto and then claim it was the terrorists.

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