Intifada in Paris
By Olivier Guitta
For the past week, the suburbs of Paris have been subject to violent riots from mostly young Muslims. This is definetely not a one time occurrence. I just wrote an article for the Weekly Standard on that topic. Here is an excerpt:
One police-union leader, writing to Interior Minister Sarkozy, declared, "A civil war is unfolding in Clichy-sous-Bois. We cannot handle the challenge any longer. Only the Army, trained and equipped for this type of mission, can intervene to stabilize the situation."
Yet despite all the national and international headlines they occasioned, last week's disturbances were no freak occurrence. For at least 15 years, the immigrant and first-generation suburbs around France's large and medium-sized cities have been out of control. Crime rates have gone through the roof: According to the Renseignements G�n�raux, a division of the police, 70,000 violent crimes have been recorded in urban settings since the beginning of the year. They include the torching of more than 28,000 cars and 17,500 trash bins. According to the Interior Ministry, some 9,000 police cars have been stoned by youths this year.
At least as worrisome as such intermittent flare-ups is what happens every day in these ethnic neighborhoods. Most have become a no-man's land where police scarcely venture and the law of the jungle prevails. Honest, law-abiding inhabitants feel abandoned. As Bally Bagayoko, deputy mayor of Saint-Denis, a working-class suburb of Paris, put it: "People have totally lost confidence in the police. In most cases, they don't even file a complaint." Sometimes judges are physically threatened or attacked.