Friday, November 04, 2005
THE PARIS THAT ATE CARS
Anti-car activists in Paris continue their war against wheels:
In the north-eastern suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, gangs of youths set fire to a Renault car dealership and incinerated at least a dozen cars, a supermarket and a local gymnasium ...
Bands of youths forced a team of France-2 television reporters out of their car in the suburb of Le Blanc Mesnil, then flipped the vehicle and set it on fire.
They don’t care for public transport, either. Or, for some reason, synagogues:
A week of riots in poor neighborhoods outside Paris gained dangerous new momentum Thursday, with youths shooting at police and firefighters and attacking trains and symbols of the French state ...
Unrest flared for an eighth straight night Thursday, though scaled down from previous says. Young men fire buckshot at riot police vehicles in Neuilly-sur-Marne, while a group of 30 to 40 harassed police near a synagogue further east in Stains ...
That piece, in The Guardian, claims a total of 165 cars have been torched throughout the Paris metro area, and another 40 incinerated in regions north-west. They really hate those cars! In other car-related news, Danish cartoonists are under attack:
A Danish experiment in testing “the limits of freedom of speech” has backfired—or succeeded spectacularly—after newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed provoked an outcry.
Thousands of Muslims have taken to the streets in protest at the caricatures, the newspaper that published them has received death threats and two of its cartoonists have been forced into hiding ...
The ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries called on Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister, to take “necessary steps” against the “defamation of Islam”.
Back to matters Parisian. No Pasaran is helpfully covering French media reports:
Rioters are now shooting at riot cops with real bullets. The French preSS is mystified by this development, real bullets having been banned by Ripoublika Franska decree many moons ago. The French preSS is also mystified that rioting exists at all, happiness and joyful brotherhood having been declared by decree (and redeclared endlessly) to be the general condition of the people. The latest theory by the French preSS on the causes of this violence has something to do with the needless provoking, insulting, and humiliating of a certain portion of the population that would otherwise have been perfectly happy and law abiding.
Henrik at Viking Observer is performing a similar role with the Danish press. More from No Pasaran:
Young French bloggers are spreading inter-suburban rumors and encouragement through the numerous Skyblogs that sprout up like poisonous mushrooms.
Money quotes from these rising French blogstars: “screw the cops”, “too many brothers who did not live their life are in the cemetery”, “the cops will pay for this. If you need us in Clichy [suburb where the current riots started] we can come over. Gagny [an other shithole suburb] is just next door”, “Clichy guy needs help to screw the cops”, "May God bless France because the war has begun", and of course the usual rubbish about Allah and paradise and the like.
War? As in ... civil war? Paul McGeough, call your copyright lawyers—the Guardian is stealing your bit: “Fires of ‘civil war’ erupt in Paris”.
(Much thanks to Tom Pechinski)
UPDATE. More on this from Daily Demarche.
UPDATE II. 400 cars burned! Yet French TV leads with the latest on a month-long transit strike in Marseille.
UPDATE III. Now Mark Steyn moves in on McGeough’s turf: “This, I think, is the start of a long Eurabian civil war we’re witnessing here.”