Paris Burning

Six nights in a row now Muslim youth, uh, I mean, students, are waging an intifada (according to Glenn Reynolds), Parisian-style, in the northeast suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The Islamists are on a rampage, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails and smashing whatever gets in their way. At first the Interior Minister talked tough and used harsh tactics, which, according to some critics, just made the Muslims, I mean students, angrier and more violent. So, officials decided a little face-to-face with the terrorists would be more productive. As they were having a conversation with the thugs, the violence continued to spread.

So, how did this all start? Last Thursday, three Muslim teenagers, returning home from playing soccer, were pursued by police on foot (See UPDATE below) for attempting to avoid a police checkpoint. These checkpoints are not uncommon in the high-crime neighborhoods such as where these boys lived. They climbed a fence and jumped into the cables of a power substation. Two were killed, one survived, though badly burned. This is what the brother of one of the Muslim teenagers had to say:

"Young people don't just throw themselves into an electrical current," Benna said Tuesday, his voice trembling in anger. "They looked behind them and saw something that made them so terrified, so desperate, they did it out of absolute fear. I hate the police. They are responsible for my brother's death."

(Why didn’t the hated and feared police finish off the third youth? No one was looking, right? There were no dashboard-mounted cameras anywhere, right? Why didn’t they throw him into the cable lines?)

That’s not entirely accurate (not the part about hating the police). There is, almost weekly from the Middle East, news of young Muslims killing themselves with bombs strapped around their waists. I doubt this electrocution was intentional. Unfortunately, the Muslim teens were just being stupid: they ran from the police and didn’t watch where they were going.

The regrettable death of the teenage delinquents was the excuse needed for some disgruntled, unassimilated, mostly Muslim immigrants to take to the streets to destroy their neighborhood. As usual, the MSM is excusing this rampage as a reaction to the dire poverty in which these immigrants live. Criminals are always the victims.

UPDATE: According to a Fox news article,

Unrest was triggered by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted in a power substation where they hid to escape police. A third was injured. Officials have said police were not pursuing the boys, aged 15 and 17.

The Uncooperative Blogger analyses a BBC article, pointing out that not until you are several paragraphs into the article is it revealed what the ethnicity and the religion of the rioters are.

Daniel in Brookline notes that there is a problem with these immigrants assimilating:

I don't know if this is the start of something big, as Prof. Reynolds suggests. But let me remind you that the trouble has been brewing in Europe for over a decade now, with Muslim families moving in, enjoying European social services, and failing to integrate themselves into European society. As the French government wonders whether or not to ban headscarves in public schools, synagogue torchings -- and Muslim honor killings -- are increasing.

Roger L. Simon visited one of these rough neighborhoods in Paris a couple of years ago. Because of what he saw, he is not surprised by this outbreak of violence:

When I visited the banlieu a couple of years back, I didn't see one gendarme. I was told they were frightened to go in there. I can't blame them. I was too. I have been in Ramallah and the back streets of Cairo and I was more tense in Monfleury.

It’s a cauldron ready to explode.

Mick Stockinger wryly observes:

It is no overstatement to compare the current culture and political climate in France to its pre-revolutionary era. France's traditional political paralysis and the immigrant "bomb" are a case of the irresistable [sic] force meeting the immovable object.

Add to this the cataylst [sic] of profound denial, and the explosion will be sooner rather than later.