It looks like the week-old rioting in France is getting worse:
Angry youths clashed with police and firefighters outside Paris late Wednesday in the worst of seven straight nights of violence set off by the accidental death of two teenagers. By late Thursday, more cars were burning in at least one of the city’s northern suburbs.
A group of youths danced around a car they had set on fire in a Paris working-class district Wednesday night, the seventh night of clashes.
Gunshots were fired at police officers and firefighters in three separate incidents Wednesday night, said Prefect Jean-François Cordet, the government’s top official in Seine-St.-Denis, a department north of Paris that includes a belt of working-class neighborhoods with a large immigrant population from North Africa and the sub-Saharan region.In the clashes on Wednesday night, a police station was ransacked, a garage was set on fire and a shopping center and two schools were vandalized, Mr. Cordet said. Riot police forces have used tear gas and rubber bullets to repel the attacks.
I haven’t been following this closely, so I do not know how much of this is fueled by the Muslim underclass out of religious fervor, anger over economic disparities, or both, but it sure is a mess. According to what I heard on the news, the French authorities believe the worst is over.
And since this is the French, some obligatory snark:
Let’s face facts…the French are in a quagmire. This is looking like another Vietnam. The insurgents are winning and gaining support each night. Of course, America is to blame. The invasion of Iraq has inflamed the passions of the Arab street. Who knew that the first Arab street to erupt would be in Paris, but it’s still America’s fault.
Chirac has no choice but to surrender now. A new, pro Arab government, similar to the Vichey French will need to be set up, of course.But no need to worry…Chirac can convene the government in exile. Probably at the Hotel/Casino “Paris” in Las Vegas.
In all seriousness, I hope they gain control and the violence stops.