Occupied France

The French intifada may not be making the headlines in the United States anymore, but it hasn’t stopped. If anything, the violence in the banlieues of Paris is getting even worse. The Telegraph has more on what’s being called a “civil war” within the suburbs of Paris:

As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were “in a state of civil war” with Muslims in the most depressed “banlieue” estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin.

It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (who is the assumed heir apparent to President Chirac) has been stating that the violence is mainly criminal in nature — which may be true to a point, but it also fails to understand that the criminal element and the Islamist element may be part and parcel of the same whole.

What’s even more striking is the language being used by French officials: they’re referring to “retaking territory” in the suburbs of their own capital city. The banlieues of Paris are becoming virtual pockets of occupied territory in which 2,500 police officers have been injured in violent clashes with “youths” armed with rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails.

The situation in France is exceptionally dire, and unless something is done to stem the violence, France will once again become occupied territory — more slowly than before, but the result will nevertheless be the same.

4 thoughts on “Occupied France

  1. But are there not young men from the DOM-TOM’s of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guyana amongst these youths? What about the Cape Verdeans, Reunionais, and others who are not Muslim and feel equally deprived and angry? I am not heaping all the blame on the French Gov, not by a long shot, just merely pointing out that this boiling pot is also full of many, many minorities who grew up Roman Catholic as well.

  2. Joaquin–

    Well that just settles it then huh. I suggest you do some more reading if this is all you have seen and please next time expand your scope beyond the jihadwatch.org’s of this world who are full of self-serving spin.

  3. It’s a lot more complicated than just one factor or another. There’s almost certainly a large Islamist element to it, but there is also an economic factor to it, as the banlieues have a massive black market economy that’s held in place by organized crime.

    The big problem is that those two factors can join together, with the proceeds from organized crime going to fund terrorist activity and gangsters being recruited into terror cells. There’s probably a lot of that going on in Europe, which makes things all the more dangerous.

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