Understanding the Paris Riots: Multiculturalism and the Self-Liquidation of Europe

**anonymaus** · Thursday, November 10th, 2005

Original: Understanding the Paris Riots: Multiculturalism and the Self-Liquidation of Europe

Summary: Europe never learned the real lesson of the evils of Nazism. Rather than reject the deepest premises of the Nazis, they have inverted them into a new form, so that Europe no longer seeks to liquidate its racial minorities -- but instead empowers those minorities to carry out the self-liquidation of Europe. Nowhere are the results more ominous than in France.

Long, detailed, well written article.

**Triglav** · Thursday, November 10th, 2005

Yeah, good stuff, basically.

I'll post repost this at other fora. I hope you don't mind.

**Death and the Sun** · Saturday, November 12th, 2005

European far right seizes on French riots

BRUSSELS - Far-right groups across Europe are seizing on riots by the children of French immigrants as a potential vote-winner and intensifying their demands that governments halt immigration and toughen up nationality laws.

Some portray the violence as the seed of bloody ethnic civil war, or play on fears of Islamic radicalism to warn that today's petrol bomb-hurling teenager could be tomorrow's suicide bomber.

"The riots are fertile ground for the far right," Thierry Balzacq, security and immigration analyst at Brussels think-tank Centre for European Policy Studies, said of riots that have sparked copycat violence in some of France's neighbours.

"It gives them extra leverage on the waverers, those people on the verge of voting far-right. And we know that European democracies are full of that kind of voter," he added.

Governments in turn are seen tempted to enact measures seen as appealing to potential far-right voters. Critics suspect that may be behind French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's call on Wednesday for the expulsion of foreigners caught rioting.

Two weeks of unrest in France's poor suburbs were triggered by the deaths of two youths of African origin who were accidentally electrocuted while apparently fleeing police.

The rioting has thrown the spotlight on frustrations among the poor, predominantly French-born children of African and Arab immigrants who feel excluded from France's mainstream society.

French anti-immigrant leader Jean-Marie Le Pen declared President Jacques Chirac's response "pitiful", telling Le Figaro newspaper he had long warned of the results of "mass immigration, the moral corruption of the country's leaders, disintegration of the country and social injustice".

The situation was evolving into something "which could be the first signs of a civil war", he said.

The solution was clear, Le Pen said: an end to immigration, tougher nationality laws and a zero-tolerance security crackdown -- possibly including the army.

Fears the violence would spread through Europe have so far proven unfounded, with only isolated cases of youths burning cars in Germany and Belgium. But far-right activists all over the continent say the lesson from France is clear enough.

"These episodes are not by chance but are the direct consequence of various French Socialist governments which favoured indiscriminate immigration," said Giacomo Stucchi of Italy's anti-immigration Northern League party.

In a dig at rivals before April's general election, Stucchi predicted that centre-left leader Romano Prodi would water down recent laws clamping down on illegal immigrants if elected.

Germany's anti-immigrant NPD, which last year made headlines by winning seats in an eastern state assembly, said the riots showed attempts to found a multicultural Europe had failed.

"The NPD wishes foreigners a good trip home," it said on its website, reiterating its calls for forced repatriations.

In the Netherlands, still traumatised by last year's killing of film-maker Theo van Gogh, a critic of Islam, by an Islamist militant, anti-immigration campaigner Geert Wilders called on Monday for an end to immigration by "non-Western foreigners".

Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of Denmark's anti-immigration Danish People's Party, went further, arguing this week that the French violence was tantamount to terrorism.

Her spokesman said by telephone the party believed that the seeds of terrorism could be found in the same environment as the violent riots in France.

Far-right groups in Belgium and Austria have also stepped up calls for immigration clampdowns, and the radical wing of Russia's nationalists seized on the riots to push a "Russia for the Russians" message.

Beate Winkler of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), said it was too early to say whether the French rioting would lead to reprisal attacks on immigrants.

But she and others noted the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on US targets by radical Islamists had increased public suspicion of Europe's Muslim communities as a security risk and made debate on racial integration harder.

"Liberal democracies seem to be pushing for more security (since 9/11), making all social relations very confrontational," argued Balzacq of the Centre for European Policy Studies. "It is very dangerous."

From the The New Zealand Herald.

**Gandalf** · Friday, December 1st, 2006

The unreported race riot:

Fredric Encel, Professor of international relations at the prestigious Ecole Nationale d'Administration in Paris and a man not known for crying wolf, recently stated that France is becoming a new Lebanon. The implication, far-fetched though it may seem, was that civil upheaval might be no more than a few years off, sparked by growing ethnic and religious polarization. In recent weeks, a series of events has underlined this ominous trend.

On March 8, tens of thousands of high school students marched through central Paris to protest education reforms announced by the government. Repeatedly, peaceful demonstrators were attacked by bands of black and Arab youths--about 1,000 in all, according to police estimates. The eyewitness accounts of victims, teachers, and most interestingly the attackers themselves gathered by the left-wing daily Le Monde confirm the motivation: racism.

Some of the attackers openly expressed their hatred of "little French people." One 18-year-old named Heikel, a dual citizen of France and Tunisia, was proud of his actions. He explained that he had joined in just to "beat people up," especially "little Frenchmen who look like victims." He added with a satisfied smile that he had "a pleasant memory" of repeatedly kicking a student, already defenseless on the ground.

Another attacker explained the violence by saying that "little whites" don't know how to fight and "are afraid because they are cowards." Rachid, an Arab attacker, added that even an Arab can be considered a "little white" if he "has a French mindset." The general sentiment was a desire to "take revenge on whites."

Sometimes petty theft appeared to be the initial motivation. One or two bullies would approach a student and ask for money or a cell phone. Even if the victim complied right away, they would start beating him or her. A striking account was provided by Luc Colpart, a history and geography teacher and member of the far-left union SUD. Colpart said the scenes of violence were so disturbing that he could not sleep for days. He saw students being beaten or pulled by the hair. He stressed that assailants who stole cell phones smashed them in front of their victims: "It was a game. Hatred and fun."...