Wednesday, November 09, 2005
NUANCE REQUIRED
French car grillers have moved on, as Iowahawk reports:
Immigrant Parisian youths, enraged by lack of job opportunities and a growing shortage of flammable cars, tonight turned their wrath on another hated symbol of French cultural oppression—the accordion.
That car shortage really has put a crimp in things:
France’s storm of rioting eased Wednesday, with car burnings falling nearly by half, police said. But looters and vandals defied a state of emergency with attacks on superstores, a newspaper warehouse and a subway station.
The extraordinary 12-day state of emergency, which began at midnight Tuesday, covered Paris, its suburbs and more than 30 other French cities from the Mediterranean to the border with Germany and to Rouen in the north - an indication of how widespread arson, riots and other unrest have become in nearly two weeks of violence.
Lilian Thuram—a man, apparently, despite his profession as a soccer player—thinks it’s time to examine root causes:
“The most dangerous people are not those who are messing up the suburbs. You really need to think deeply about the root causes,” said Thuram.
Got two of your root causes right here, Lilian. French media remains offended by foreign press coverage:
“From Italy to South Africa, Poland to China, from CNN to al-Jazeera, the newspaper headlines and television commentaries set against a background of blazing cars are really hyping it up,” the popular daily Le Parisien complained ...
Eric Raoult, mayor of the eastern Paris suburb of Raincy, did not like being at the receiving end of outside attention.
“Last night, Japanese television and Turkish television were in my city hall telling me what should be done. That hurts me,” he said ...
“Fire and blood in France—at least that’s what some foreign media claim is going on,” Le Parisien wrote. “Paris is burning, civil war, war zone, race riots—the headlines, especially on TV, often have no nuance.”
Let’s see ... we’ve got one man dead, 120 police and firefighters hurt, 1,500 mime-school dropouts arrested, and nearly 6,000 cars torched. Nuance! That’ll fix things.