I’ve been following the French papers a bit in keeping up on the riots in les banlieue.
And found an interesting thing today which I’m mulling over.
In Le Monde, an article discussing the politics around response to the riots mentions in passing that the public housing budget in the 2005 budget had been cut by 310 million euros.
L’annulation de 310 millions d’euros de crédits dans le budget 2005 (Le Monde du 5 novembre), affectés à l’insertion et au logement social dans les banlieues, ne peut que renforcer leur défiance. “Il est impératif que toutes les leçons soient tirées de ces émeutes. Autant sur les failles de la politique de la ville que sur l’organisation des services publics” , dénonçait, le 3 novembre, le Forum français des maires pour la sécurité urbaine (FFSU). Au fil des crises depuis un quart de siècle, la politique de la ville a en effet subi de multiples inflexions. Aux Grand Projets urbains du gouvernement Jospin de la fin des années 1990 a succédé “le programme national de rénovation urbaine” , mis en oeuvre depuis 2003, par Jean-Louis Borloo, ministre de la cohésion sociale. Au “traitement social” des banlieues dont la droite stigmatisait les échecs, s’est substitué un projet, certes ambitieux mais centré sur le logement et l’habitat.
The response of the French council of “mayors for urban security” was simple – the problem is both urban policy and the organization of social services to the public.
I’m going to dodge the issue of whether a dependent welfare class – confronted with a decline in the government’s commitment to fund their benefits – can be expected to react this way.
I’ll move directly to the meaty question:
In the face of national fiscal crises – and a dependent minority who has been in essence, pacified through generous welfare programs – what happens when you can’t afford those programs any more?
What is the social and political fallout of unintegrated minorities who can’t sustain themselves, and whose subsidies are being cut off?
MSM is in overdrive to ignore the Islamic factor. CNN just had a big report and went out of their way to avoid it, bury it really. Described the 2 dead kids as ‘black teenagers’ and the areas rioting as ‘poor’ and ‘working class’. Check any of the wire services, the only time you will see the word ‘Muslim’ is regarding Muslim mediators. I casual observer might wonder why Muslim community leaders in particular were being utilized, seeing as these are just poor frustrated Frechmen of no further description.
bq. _”In the face of national fiscal crises – and a dependent minority who has been in essence, pacified through generous welfare programs – what happens when you can’t afford those programs any more?”_
1) You borrow on the future to pay for them is one answer. Not a good one in my opinion but for some reason we as a nation seem to think it is prudent.
2) You cease to fund the programs all together is another answer. One some people and all of the needy would be highly upset about.
3) You cease to fund the programs at the current levels and spend only what the budget affords. An answer the needy are not satisfied with since it means a decrease in benefits for all of the needy or a loss of benefits for some of the needy.
4) You raise taxes to afford the current levels of necessity to balance the expenditure. A solution that would appease those in need but has a potential of putting those who do not have a need into the need category.
5) You raise taxes and cap spending possibly satisfying the needy for a limited time but you most invariably come back to the original question since the problems of future needs and the needy will not be solved.
bq. _”What is the social and political fallout of unintegrated minorities who can’t sustain themselves, and whose subsidies are being cut off?”_
Political fallout? Those currently in office will lose their positions and any control they currently wield. A new set will arise with more promises that can’t be fulfilled and will eventually fall to the same fate. Until government controls and populace expectations are set, agreed upon and stabilized the vicious circle will continue both politically and socially. One thing is certain though, if the vicious circles of social and political unrest continue it will be the demise of the society as a whole.
Building vast housing projects for people who neither work nor assimilate – and who never will work or assimilate – is national suicide sooner or later.
This is how socialism strangles itself with its own tentacles. Zero-obligation welfare to create a huge underclass, and anti-capitalist economics to ensure that the underclass never has enough jobs. Throw in the patented self-loathing politics that the French all but invented, and you have complete moral and intellectual disarmament in the face of chaos. Equate law enforcement with racism, and meet every crisis by demanding that the country swallow more of the same poison that made it sick in the first place.
We can help out by encouraging the MSM to print more clueless stories blaming the riots on the “housing crisis”, which will prompt the French to build still more Jenins.
Wretchard at the Belmont Club has labeled this the second Fall of France, I think he is right.
The rioters are now burning women in wheelchairs, with the aim of establishing an Islamic State inside France (no other explanation other than ethnic cleansing Balkan-style). There are fears of the loyalty of the 15% of soldiers who are Muslim. The rioting and burning has spread into all parts of the country. Muslims are establishing local “Muslim only” zones under control of Islamists. Sakorzy suspects Iranian command and control of the rioters.
Wretchard also notes that de Villepin counted on the tame Government Imams to suppress the rioting, instead they were stoned as well. The internet (allowing remote Command and Control and Communication) as well as the Millet system (separate religious communities with their own laws) made this strategy akin to Gamelin’s failed effort to stop the Panzers in May 1940.
Yes, large parts of France are now part of the defacto Islamic Republic of Europe. That is not going to go away and will only increase in scope as the organized Islamic forces seize more territory in France and openly declare their Islamic Republic.
Fallout?
1. Eventually the French military and public will turn to someone willing to use whatever force is required to crush the Islamic Republic of Europe; and expect some reverse De Gaulle figure to rally the remaining military forces and expel all Muslims.
2. Expect Denmark, Italy, Britain, Netherlands, and Germany to find themselves with Islamic insurrections of varying scope and success; and to eventually turn to the military to simply kill the Islamic rebels and deport all associated rebels. All of these nations will end up markedly more socially conservative and nationalist than before.
3. Iranian support for these insurgencies is obvious and will come to light; exposing the Iranian/Al Qaeda/Islamist temporary alliance to build the Caliphate (before the Night of the Long Knives comes to pass).
4. Democrats once again lose by winning. The base is satisfied with anti-Bush “illegal war” stuff but the general public sees Muslims as the “ENEMY” broadly of Western Civilization and Bush/Republicans as the only ones even willing to fight. Bush has always been strongest when the conflict is framed in 9/11 terms and this open revolt to establish an Islamic Republic in France cannot be media filtered forever, particularly when the formal establishment is declared and the reverse De Gaulle starts the killing to take back the lost parts of France.
5. The nascent Islamic Republic of France sounds the death knell of the European Union and the return of the Atlantic Alliance against a common enemy (Islamists, the Iranians, Al Qaeda, etc).
1. You reform the economy, stop discouraging job creation, stop protecting (mostly white) government employees and union members in major companies, while the youth unemployment rate is at 25% nationally and over 50% among Muslim youths. You stop marginalizing those on whom you are supposedly counting to support your bloated welfare state in the future.
2. You require the police to patrol these areas on a regular basis. You adopt a Sarkozian zero-tolerance policy.
3. You enforce laws against race discrimination in employment and housing. You implement affirmative action programs to get more non-white French youths into productive activity.
4. You stop telling people that it’s okay to engage in destruction of property, arson, hijacking and kidnapping as long as you are protesting job cuts, changes in agricultural policy, the war in Iraq, or Zionist policies, but not okay if you are a marginalized Arab living in a segregated ghetto with lousy schools and no jobs.
5. You stop the obsessive and paranoid criticism of the “Anglo-Saxon” economic and social model and start putting your own house in order.
Gabriel,
Perhaps your pseudo-conservative suggestions would work if there were a set of shared values (work ethic, respect of civil law, etc.) among the traditional AND immigrant cultures in France. However, this is not the case.
The multiculturalism of the left has stacked the fire wood high, now it has been ignited. The Muslims don’t want to be successful Frenchmen, they have no respect for the remnants of western values. The French de-based their own western culture by following the mantra “all cultures and social traditions are of equal value.”
The French have already allowed de-facto autonomous Muslim enclaves to grow within their borders. Before long we will learn that the rioters want all the material trappings of the west but also will insist on being governed by Islam.
It may well be the beginning of the end for the Fifth Republic, though I did not expect it to begin quite so soon. In April ’05 I commented “here”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006651.php#c3 at WoC that “_There is so much going wrong in France these days that it is entirely possible the Fifth Republic will not survive to see its 50th anniversary in 2008._”
Similarly, 0n 30 May ’05 after French voters rejected the euro-monstrosity trying to pass for a constitution I “said:”:http://ww.windsofchange.net/archives/006918.php#c13
bq. _Finally, it is one more indication that la Cinquieme Republique is getting very long in the tooth. Since 1789 French governance has been inherently unstable, and the increasingly evident failure of French social institutions–particulary when combined with nearly-uncontrolled Muslim immigration–does not presage well for the medium-term future. The European Union has been perhaps the signature project of the entire Fifth Republic, and when viewed in social context it suggests that the current incarnation of French governance may do well to arrive at its 50th anniversaire in 2008._
The ENAiaque nobility of France have no more of a clue what to do about the current uprising than did the nobility of 1789.
I wonder whether we might soon see a sort of rough vigilantisme of the Right in France. A fowling piece can still do a lot of damage, and if the authorities continue their befuddled attempt to negotiate rather than use force to regain what passes for control we may find ordinary citoyens are willing to take things into their own hands.
As for AL’s “meaty question,” _In the face of national fiscal crises – and a dependent minority who has been in essence, pacified through generous welfare programs – what happens when you can’t afford those programs any more?_, I would add (rather disquietingly) that it applies equally well to Saudi Arabia. When the oil money runs out, or the exploding demographics outrun it, all #=|| will break loose in that country.
Mike,
I’m not saying these groups are easily assimilable. But then it will hardly do as a practical matter to simply complain about the difference. 95% of the “youths” committing violent acts were born and raised in France and are therefore French. Where would you suggest deporting them to? If not, what would you suggest in practical terms?
Second, the idea that France is a “multiculturalist” society is false. The U.S., yes. Great Britain, yes. France, decidedly not. France has recently banned head scarves in public schools and routinely rounds up young Arab looking youths virtually at random for questioning. Either of these practices would be unconstitutional in the U.S. In France, you also do not have the level of political correctness that you have in the U.S. Indeed, most French people are fairly intolerant and openly so.
The fact is: politically, the choices at the moment are between Sarkozy’s approach: strict law enforcement and greater integration (Sarkozy is a big supporter of affirmative action) and De Villepin’s do-nothing approach: appease tempers and pretend there is nothing wrong with the French “social model”. (I will not mention the Socialist or Communist parties’ approaches since they have none to speak of.)
In practical terms, what would you do (other than complain about the state of affairs)?
This story is giving me a horrible gut feeling, even if the rebellion is hundreds of kilometers away.
If that will happen in Italy too, I will wholeheartedly support, and probably even campaign for, harsh measures to squash the rebellion.
I am beginning to see that one of the great dangers in the world now is not radical Islam but alarmist idiots like you who try to turn every event into a “clash of civilizations”.
Get a friggin’ grip. These kind of things happen all the time during the course of human history.
Only old men think like you do. And the future is written by the hand of the young.
So here’s a suggestion: worry less about France and more about your own family and community. And stop being so damn paranoid and reactionary.
And try to enjoy life. And please, allow others to do the same.
I try to enjoy life, mate.
But the idea of a vast number of people rebelling in order to estabilish Sharia isn’t a nice one.
Yes, revolutions happened all the time. But this does not mean the “old” order has to just say “sorry” and commit suicide – especially if it is better.
Stiggy —
WHAT do the Rioters want?
They have said they want the establishment of Sharia Law and authority inside the various “zones” and no-go by agreement of any instrument of the French State. That is open, secessionist rebellion. It is also organized by someone, Sarko has all but said it’s Iran.
I doubt that the Army will stand by forever. It sees itself as the last guardian of the nation, and even though some units will mutiny others will stand by.
Almost EVERY city has this rebellion underway, cars are being burnt in the heart of Paris now, and yes the goals are openly political. The government is paralyzed, and the vast majority of Frenchmen are angry.
As for the immigrants, in 2001 Soccer match vs. Algeria they whistled and booed the Marsailles. They do not consider themselves Frenchmen but European Muslims in the nascent Islamic Republic of Europe. There are riots in Birmingham (vs. West Indies immigrants) by Muslims as well.
All available evidence suggests that Muslims simply cannot co-exist with other religions, the impulse to impose by violence and terror the rule of Sharia is simply to strong culturally and politically. No nation is more liberal and accepting than Denmark, and they have riots with rioters demanding the institution of Sharia Law in zones and the removal of all authority, laws, and institutions of the State.
_youth unemployment rate is at 25% nationally and over 50% among Muslim youths._
Unemployement is so high because they don’t count the youth’s who go to school. So what is left are the bad cases.
310 million is compared with what the French state spends every year peanuts, small peanuts. Also the debt etc. of the French state is quiet good but i understand that you can’t say anyhing positive about France on this site.
ps. Those cites have been designed to warehouse communists so i doubt that they are good bases to take over the France. There is a reason why they are satelite cities a few miles in the countryside with only a few, easy to close, roads leading up to them.
“All available evidence suggests that Muslims simply cannot co-exist with other religions.”
Wow. Insightful. Paranoid. Ignorant. Delusional. Dangerously stupid.
_95% of the “youths” committing violent acts were born and raised in France and are therefore French_
Citizenship in France is not generally by birth, but by blood. That is, the simple fact of being born in France does not automatically carry the right of citizenship.
This began with Algerians more than a generation ago because at that time Algeria was not a colony but a _departement_ of metropolitan France. That conferred citizenship on many subsequent ethnic Algerians born in France, but by no means all, and certainly not Moroccans, Tunisians and so on.
a: Also the debt etc. of the French state is quiet good but i understand that you can’t say anyhing positive about France on this site.
France’s debt level is not “good”; at 65% of GDP it is slightly higher than that of the US and neigboring European nations, which is quite average.
And I don’t understand what you mean by France warehousing communists. What, in case there’s a shortage? And you say that France can easily close off all the roads to the cités. What happens then? Do the cités surrender, starve, or break into the warehouses and eat the communists?
And how does not counting youths who go to school make France’s unemployment figures higher? In normal countries, not counting students makes your unemployment rate lower, not higher.
Overall, I’m skeptical that France can be saved by apartheid-style tactics and bad math.
a (#13)
_Unemployement is so high because they don’t count the youth’s who go to school. So what is left are the bad cases._
Well, I know some of these “bad cases” that have emigrated to Spain either looking for a job, the younger; or fleeing from the taxes, the older. By the way, they are Christian or Jews.
It is not easy to raise taxes in France, where much of its business are private owned but in fact work for the State because of so high levels. More taxes wouldn’t mean more money to the State, the entire Socialist system is outdated, that is the problem. (Rural workers might also start rioting because cuts in subsidies due to WTO talks)
Gabriel’s (#5) points 1, 4, 5 are the best solution, in my opinion:
_1. You reform the economy…_
_4. You stop telling people that it’s okay to engage in destruction of property, arson, hijacking and kidnapping as long as you are protesting job cuts, changes in agricultural policy, the war in Iraq, or Zionist policies, but not okay if you are a marginalized Arab living in a segregated ghetto with lousy schools and no jobs._
_5. You stop the obsessive and paranoid criticism of the “Anglo-Saxon” economic and social model and start putting your own house in order._
It is mainly an economic problem, young people without job and without hope of finding it. Almost all individuals, even Muslims, want a good life, and money is the first step. That is the same for all human beings. Religion lies here in a second place, at least by now.
I hate to be so cold but some things are so basic that they are beyond politics. It is counter-productive to approach such things within the limits of political-correctness.
France is a petri dish. Neither the borders of the petri dish nor the amount of medium within it are going to change. Inside this petri dish grows mold. Each culture and subculture is a slightly different strain of mold. Like mold, they start in one area and grow outward to fill the media. A few decades ago the media was almost entirely covered with christian-anglo-saxon mold. That is no longer true. France let in other mold with the intent of feeding on it. But they let it in faster than they they could assimilate it. Now there are big splotches of foreign mold. Big enough and old enough that it’s hard to even label them as foreign anymore. What does France want to do?
I feel for the French. I really do. My opinion is that faults in their system of governance has led to this debacle. While they may negotiate their way out of it temprorarily, my guess is that this will involve some increased form of Sharia and/or increased precedence for Islam as a form of government in those regions.
To address Stiggy’s concerns, (#10), it is not an either/or question. Certainly religious and social background play a large role in how communities deal with situations like they are faced with in France. And just as certainly, Islamo-fascists will look for those communities as inroads into western civilization.
As for being paranoid, not enjoying life, and not allowing others to do the same — that statement has little meaning. I’m certainly enjoying life, and I do not feel paranoid at all, although I understand a clash of civilizations is playing out. Not accepting change is a quality of the old, not the young. Things have changed. I just simply accept it, do a little to think about it in public forums, and go on with life. To me, denial is when you fight for the right to be happy, even at the expense of recognizing the truth when it stares you in the face.
In general, I think the left has to be fairly upset in this whole Islamist terrorist issue. Just when they got the Soviets put away as an loosing issue for them (even though the Soviets were the good guys in their opinion), here comes a new bunch of political puppets of the right, the crazy terrorists. From the left’s standpoint, I ‘m sure it looks like the right just “invented” the whole issue to keep the population scared. To me, this is pure fantasy, but I can certainly understand people having that opinion.
Gabriel Gonzales writes:
Most of them have ancestry in the Magreb or elsewhere. Deport them to their ancestral homelands. For that matter, deport everyone who self-identifies as anything antagonistic to France, such as “Muslim” to the exclusion of French.
Hey, if you’re going to drop French into a blog post, at least spell it correctly. 🙂
Hey, Le Monde probably has four levels of editors, just like the L.A. Times!!
A.L.
#16
France had the same rules as the USA. If you were born in France than you were French. Don’t no when they changed that rule but but it can’t be that long ago.
#17
Those highrise building were build to house the lower working class (of which many were communists). But the working class got enough money to buy/rent a house so the highrises ended up being filled by the less desireable tennants. That means foreigners but also French “trailertrash” and especially the last category is deathly. In low rise they will only poison the lives of a few families but in high rise they will poison hunderds of families.
Riots don’t last long, at the most a week or two. If you have the likely rioters living in housing complex’s far away from the seat of power and only connected with a few, easy to close roads than you can just wait till the rage has subdued.
#19
In todays world you really need to be schooled to find a job. But to be schooled you have to been to in school until your 21 so anybody younger is unlikely to be schooled and as such will find it very difficult to find a job. Add to that that it will take time before you will find work when you leave school and it is not surprising that youth unemployment is so high
Look a, my friends went out of France because it was *impossible* for them and in one case for one of their parents to find a job there, so don’t tell me excuses. It is not a matter of a little time, but about an awful situation.
Older ones just move their restaurant down the coast till a place where their business are not constantly watched and their profits, sometimes up to two thirds, confiscated.
No Stiggy it is reality.
Islam simply does not permit co-existence with Western norms of behavior and standards.
The “youths” rioting do not consider themselves French but Muslim, with a separate identity and nationality. That of the Ummah.
Their demands are: a. total withdrawal of the police and all other forms of government and a separate “millet” or nation run according to Shariah by Muslims. b. apology by Sakorzy and his sacking from the government. c. large transfers of tribute to Muslim areas and amorphous “respect” i.e. the old Muslim-Ottoman rules of the infidel bowing to the Muslim rulers.
This is seen in Denmark where Muslims are demanding much the same and rioting (screaming “Danes out!”) over the ostensible issue of a cartoon in a Newspaper depicting Mohammed. Or Britain where Winnie the Pooh was banned (Muslims object to Piglet) along with Piggy banks given out by Banks (Muslims object) along with wearing the Flag on lapels of Police Officers (Muslims object to the Cross) along with proposals to change the Flag so Muslims won’t be offended (by the Cross).
Muslims simply are unable, politically, socially and as a matter of toleration to live with people who do not share their religion when they reach a certain mass. They won’t tolerate Piggy Banks, Winnie the Pooh, cartoons in newspapers, ads for booze, women in adverts … in WESTERN countries where they are a substantial minority.
They seek by violence to impose their values on everyone else. If they don’t get their way they assassinate (Van Gogh) or riot (France, Denmark, Britain in Birmingham). [This is ironically due to IMHO the strong nature of the brotherhood bonds that Islam has, noted by Malcolm X to Sir Richard Francis Burton (the explorer, not the actor) which is both a great strength and terrible weakness]
The Planet is simply too small for Islam to remain as it was, trapped in the Amber of the late 1100’s; and it will either change on it’s own (unlikely) or the West will change it for Islam, forcibly, in many many confrontations which will unfortunately be bloody.
PC and Multiculti nonsense means denying the reality seen by your own eyes; as usual you and A are unable to process what is happening throughout France, Denmark, Britain (the Birmingham riots) which is nothing less than the political demand for a separate nation within each country that cannot be allowed to stand any more than Lincoln would allow Jefferson Davis to secede.
The choice of violence alone and the burning of a disabled women should tell you what they want: intimidation of a weak government into giving them a separate nation.
I’m with J. Aguilar on this. The mayhem has an Islamic flavor to it, but the underlying cause of the mayhem is the *socialism*. If it’s impossible to start a business, and the risk associated with hiring new people is very high, there will be high unemployment. If a generous welfare state establishes incentives for the unemployed not to leave and seek jobs elsewhere, unemployment will be even higher.
Unemployed youth become frustrated and will search for ways to have a meaningful existance. In this case, militant Islamic nutcases have come out of the woodwork to fill this need, but if Islamism hadn’t been around, something similiarly awful would have shown up in its place: perhaps more traditional fascism.
It’s a classic correlation/causation fallacy. The violence is correlated with Islam, but the root cause is socialism. Very few will understand this, and a racial/religious war may erupt.
Eventually French politicians might get elected by promising security and prosperity through the ethnic cleansing of Muslims. On a certain level this makes sense: the unemployed youth rioters are mostly Muslim, and eliminating them *would* make the average (non-Muslim) Frenchman safer, as well as richer, since the burden on the welfare state would decrease.
The problem with this plan is that the death squads will be run with the same competence and precision as the centrally planned big-government programs that caused the problem to begin with.
The way out of the hole is painful, but considerably less ugly than the current path: abolish the welfare state, and dismantle the web of regulation that interferes with business. The difficulty with this is that powerful entrenched interest groups benefit (in the short term) from the current arrangement and will resist reform. These groups include labor unions, existing large corporate entities who would suffer from increase competition from new larger firms, welfare recipients, and of course the civil servants.
Note also how the French government has failed in it’s supposedly core function of protecting the lives and property of its “citizens.” This isn’t surprising. The problem here is that the French government isn’t really accountable. Individuals who have allowed the State to take responsibility for their personal security cannot efficiently “fire” the relevant members of the permanent bureaucracy and “hire” another security provider. As a result, the police force looks after its own interests, and those interests don’t involve taking on the risks and responsibilities associated with patrolling the slums.
_On a certain level this makes sense: the unemployed youth rioters are mostly Muslim, and eliminating them would make the average (non-Muslim) Frenchman safer, as well as richer, since the burden on the welfare state would decrease._
The housimg market would also collapse as there would be massive supply of empty housing which would make the average Frenchman a lot poorer. Add to that the fact that there would be a large cut of demand in most things and the profit in those things would falter making the average Frenchman even poorer.
ps. I find this Hitlerian economics and about as smart as invading the USSR.
ps. Most of the “welfare” like pensions etc. goes to the white French and the real welfare can never be that big as welfare is significantly less than the average income.
It all runs together. Much of the cancer in the Islamic world was (and is) incubated under fascist socialist regimes. A match made in hell.