And on the Ninth Day, The Times Discovers The Riots

The story still isn't above the fold, but it has reached the front page of the Times online. The rioting is getting worse, and it spreading beyond those original communities:

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.

Traffic was halted Thursday morning on a commuter line linking Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport after stone-throwing rioters attacked two trains. One passenger was slightly injured by broken glass, according to local news reports. The violence picked up again as night fell with burning cars reported in the suburb of Stains.

Why did it take eight nights of rioting to get the Times interested? Was there something more important going on in Europe that deserved coverage ahead of the rioting? It seems that the Times was reluctant to push this story.

But, you want to know what is missing from the story? Any mention of the identities of the rioters. These are largely Muslim teens and young men conducting these attacks. That doesn't rate a mention at all.

Also, overheard on the radio this morning (WABC 770AM), apparently riots have been an annual occurrence for the past decade, but the French authorities have seen them peter out after a day or two. This year has been different. I'd say.

UPDATE:
The rioting is taking on a momentum all its own. And it would seem that the French authorities are ill-prepared to stop it. The police are reluctant to go into these largely Muslim areas and put down the rioting, arson, and violence. There are reports of the goons taking potshots at police and firefighters trying to put out the fires (and can we get confirmation of this from multiple sources, or are we seeing Katrina-style coverage in Paris as well as rumors are spread and disseminated by the media, picked up by the blogs, who are then blamed for spreading the rumors?)

Captain Ed, notes that the NYT editorial board gets around to mentioning the Muslim identities of the rioters, but only to slam the French government for not being more sensitive to their needs.

That's utter BS. There is no place in civil society for rioting, no matter how supposedly deprived of economic opportunities you claim to be. The French economy has been in the toilet for more than a decade, but that's the fault of the government's socialist policies that stifle economic growth. Trying to reduce assimilation is another problem with French policies, and the repercussions are being felt as well.

The suburbs of Paris have a long history of violent uprisings by enraged residents. But the nightly clashes in the grimy northeastern environs over the past week have been grimly contemporary.

So, these riots are to be excused because they happen regularly? How about explaining why the police aren't doing more to stop the violence? That's worth a story or 20. These riots aren't because of two kids getting electrocuted while trespassing at an electrical substation. That may be a pretext for some, but it doesn't explain why we're seeing rioting and not mass civil demonstrations. What is it about these particular Muslim communities that jump right into rioting to destroy property within these economically depressed communities? Also unanswered by the Times. Curious.

UPDATE:
Drudge is reporting that the rioting in and around Paris wasn't some spontaneous act. That figures. And sounds really familiar. The same thing happened in 2000. In Israel. The Palestinian terrorists launched Intifada 2, supposedly because Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jersualem. Rioting and violence broke out shortly thereafter, but we have known from early on that the Palestinian violence was organized by the terrorist groups in advance of the Sharon visit, and were condoned by Arafat and his cronies.

We're witnessing a Parisian Intifada folks. And the media isn't willing or able to make that fact known. Curious.

"What we saw in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis overnight was not spontaneous, it was perfectly organized. We are looking into by whom and how," Sarkozy told French news channel i-tele.

The interior minister also said the government would not allow "troublemakers, a bunch of hoodlums, think they can do whatever they want" in the country.

So far, the goons are running rampant and the authorities haven't been able to get ahead of the curve. Not good at all.

UPDATE:
The Paris riots have now gone on longer than the 1965 Watts Riots -

On August 11, 1965, a routine traffic stop in South Central Los Angeles provided the spark that lit the fire of those seething feelings. The riots lasted for six days, leaving 34 dead, over a thousand people injured, nearly 4,000 arested, and hundreds of buildings destroyed.

It's gone on longer than the Newark and Detroit riots of 1967. So far, we're thankful that there aren't any deaths attributed directly to the rioting, but there's no sense that the rioting is going to stop any time soon. The French aren't getting a handle on the situation and if anything, the rioting is spreading more and more each night.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has running updates on the rioting and the blogosphere reaction.

UPDATE:
The Jawa Report sees the French government as powerless to stop the violence. I surely hope not. If Paris goes, so goes the rest of France, and Europe is ill prepared to stop this kind of violence. Dr. Reo Symes notes that Theodore Dalrymple had warned of this kind of violence erupting back in 2002. Ace notes that Paris has become the Beirut on the Seine.

Also blogging the riots: True Blue Liberal. And Generation Why? has a linkfest on the continuing violence and finds John Kerry's reaction to be quite curious.

UPDATE:
Instapundit has a lengthy update on the rioting, including what might happen next.

UPDATE:
No Parasan reports that a handicapped woman was severely burned when the rioting goons tossed a molotov cocktail into a bus. Socialists understand the deep seated causes that underly the youths' despair. No Pasaran also notes last night's toll was 400 cars and 27 buses torched. Yeah, just another day in the neighborhood, I guess. If that neighborhood was Beirut during the civil war.

UPDATE:
Lisa of the Bohemian Conservative wonders whether Brigitte Bardot was right when Bardot complained about the rising influence in France and the problems that it would cause.

It seems this is the third time sister-girl has been convicted in French court for "inciting racial hatred." In the past, she complained about the proliferation of mosques in France "while our church-bells fall silent for want of priests."

Excuse me, but, isn't open and frank (heh) dialogue about sensitive and relevant topics supposed to be the hallmark of a progressive society? Uh huh, yeah.

UPDATE:
Point Five writes about the new holiday that sprung up in Paris and its surburbs. Charukar.

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