Protests and Riots Continue As French Protest Pension Changes; UPDATE: Senate Approves Pension Reform

Protests continue across France as a result of ongoing protests and riots against the French government's plans to adjust the retirement age for pensioners. It's caused widespread fuel shortages as protesters have blocked fuel shipments from refineries around the country. Efforts to stop the blockades have been mixed as problems continue in some parts of the country. The country has even been forced to import electricity from neighboring countries as workers at nuclear power plants have been hit with a rolling strike cutting production.

France was forced to import electricity as unions announced that strikes against an increase to the retirement age would spread over the next two weeks.

The unions said production had been cut at four nuclear power plants because of a 10-day rolling strike, while at least 12 of France's 58 reactors are closed for maintenance. Work has stopped at two of three liquefied natural gas terminals.
Advertisement: Story continues below

With all of France's oil refineries out of action and a quarter of its petrol stations without fuel, police took action yesterday.

They took control of the entrance to the Grandpuits oil refinery, scuffling with pickets and dealing with a barricade of burning tyres.

The officers advanced without batons or tear-gas, clearing an 80-strong ''citizens' cordon'' of strikers and local supporters cordon with bare hands, although there were scuffles as the officers cleared the entrance.

France's Environment and Transport Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said in a radio interview the police operation had not been designed to restart refining at Grandpuits, but to gain access to fuel already stocked there.

The retirement age is to be raised to 62 from 60. This has sparked protests and riots, despite the need to keep the pension fund solvent.

UPDATE:
Despite the protests, riots, and fuel and energy distribution disruptions, the French Senate has passed the pension reform bill, which will now head to a conference reconcile the versions passed by the National Assembly and the Senate before it can be signed by President Sarkozy into law.

On Monday, a joint committee of senators and members of the National Assembly will work to reconcile the two versions of the measure, and the final package could be ready for President Nicolas Sarkozy to sign later in the week.

Protesters have scuffled with police and blockaded oil refineries and terminals for days as tensions flared over the proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 -- a measure that the government says is necessary to save money.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has said the country cannot continue to pay its debts -- to retirees and others -- by borrowing at current levels. The government's announced goal is to cut the deficit from 8 percent to 6 percent of gross domestic product by next year, an ambitious goal.

France Shuts Down Over Pension Reform Plan

The French lifestyle is under assault and pensioners aren't sitting back and letting the Sarkozy government impose the austerity measures that are designed to prop up the existing system. They're protesting in the streets, and the protests are getting increasingly violent. Indeed, it looks like the carbeque is making its return.

Among the changes are an increase in the retirement age from 60 to 62. Yet, riots have broken out around the country in nationwide strikes that have all but shut down the country. The strikes include major oil refineries, which has put a crimp on the transportation sector, including rail and air travel. Airlines have been told to reduce flights into the country because of scarcity of jet fuel.

Train operator SNCF said it expected 60% of trains to run on Tuesday, the Le Monde newspaper reported, with Metro and local trains around Paris also expected to keep some services running.

Despite the disruption, one opinion poll on Monday suggested that 71% of those surveyed supported the strikers, despite the increasing effect on people's lives.

There was more opposition among those travelling as the strikes began.

"We shouldn't think it's still acceptable to stop working at 60 years old - we should work until 65. Like other European countries we have to work longer than 60 years," insurance worker Frederic Deraed told the BBC's Matthew Price in Lille.

"It's completely useless," said housewife Nadine Gestas.

"We can't pay the pensions and we can't avoid increasing the age of retirement. Every country in Europe is raising the age of retirement."

But Olivier Sekai of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) said he saw support increasing for the protests.

"The government is acting as if we didn't have a rich country, as if we didn't have the money. The thing is we do have the money," he told the BBC.
Crisis cabinet

The week-long fuel crisis has added a new dimension to France's public discontent.

Bastille Day Carbeques

In the United States, we celebrate Independence Day with barbeques and fireworks.

In France, they spend Bastille Day torching hundreds of cars.

French youths burned 317 cars and wounded 13 police officers overnight during the now traditional bout of street violence on the eve of the Bastille Day national holiday, police say.

As French troops and their guests of honour from the Indian army made last minute preparations for the July 14 parade on the Champs Elysees in Paris, the suburbs of major cities were contemplating another clean-up operation.

By 6:00am (2pm AEST), police headquarters in Paris had recorded 317 burnt out cars - up 6.7 percent on 2008 - and 240 arrests, almost double the total for the same period last year.

These numbers were expected to increase as fresh reports came in.

The injured officers, 12 members of the police and one gendarme, were mainly suffering from hearing difficulties after being targeted by youths throwing fireworks and small-scale home-made explosives.

Since when is wanton destruction of property an acceptable and traditional means of celebrating the overthrow of the monarchy in France?

It hasn't, but the government has been unable to stop the torching of cars throughout the banlieues which are attributed to disaffected youth who can't find jobs and have bleak futures because the French can't integrate foreigners into their culture.

No Pasaran has more on the "traditional" events.

This year's carbeques are worse than prior years possibly because of ongoing clashes between rioters and police in a French town following the death of a suspect in custody. Police say the death was a suicide, but there are calls for a more thorough investigation. The rioters think the police are to blame, so they torch buildings and cars.

French riot police firing teargas and plastic bullets have struggled to contain three nights of rioting and arson by youths on suburban estates in the Loire, amid protests over the death of a 21-year-old in police custody.

High-rises in Firminy, a small town bordering countryside on the outskirts of Saint-Étienne, saw running battles between police and youths in the early hours of this morning after Mohamed Benmouna, a local supermarket cashier, was taken from his police cell in a coma and died in hospital.

Benmouna, who had been arrested on extortion charges, died on Wednesday. Police said he attempted to hang himself in his cell and fell into a coma. His Algerian family, sceptical of the official story, have filed a lawsuit to establish the circumstances of his death and whether police violence was covered up.

The local state prosecutor, Jacques Pin, said a postmortem confirmed Benmouna died of suffocation and his body showed no trace of violence or police abuse. But he said video surveillance equipment that would normally have filmed Benmouna's cell was not functioning properly. The police inspectorate has opened an investigation.

Parisian Carbeque

This is an annual event, notwithstanding the marauding thugs who torched cars throughout France and parts of Europe several times over the past few years. More than 1,000 cars were torched in Paris during New Year's and yet the French apparently tolerate this kind of unrest.

The French press reported that the Interior Ministry released a final "verified" count of 1,147 vehicles burned in France over New Year's Eve. The number is up 30.64% from last year's total, 878.



REUTERS - At least 445 cars were torched over the night of New Year's Eve in France, a 20 percent rise on last year, but there were relatively few clashes with police, the Interior Ministry and police said on Thursday.

Car burnings are regular occurrences in France but the registering the New Year's Eve total has become something of a tradition since they achieved symbolic status in the violent rioting that shook many of the country's poor suburbs in 2005.

With riots in Athens heightening worries that the economic crisis might spark a resurgence of the violence seen in the run-down "banlieues" then, 35,000 police were mobilised on New Year's Eve, some 7,000 more than last year.

Officials were also on guard against possible attacks after five sticks of dynamite were left in a Paris department store just before Christmas by a so-far unidentified group demanding a withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.

An Interior Ministry official said that as of 6:00 a.m. (0500 GMT), 445 car burnings had been registered, against 372 at the same time a year before and police had made 288 arrests, compared with 259 on Dec. 31, 2007.

That speaks poorly of the French law enforcement measures to prevent the arson and wanton destruction of vehicles and also how these communities tolerate this behavior such that it is common place and not viewed as the serious criminal activity it is.

Nine Days of Danish Riots; New Excuse Offered

The latest excuse to the ongoing rioting that has resulted in schools across Denmark torched, along with hundreds of cars, is that the riots occurred to protest police harassment.

A group of youths who have been torching cars and waste containers in the Danish capital said Tuesday the wave of unrest started as a protest against police harassment.

In a letter published in Copenhagen newspaper Politiken, the youths accused police of "brutal, racist" behavior.

It was the first time that rioting juveniles had offered any explanation for the fires that have raged for nine consecutive nights mostly in immigrant neighborhoods across the country. The authors of the letter said they would now stop rioting.

"Basically the unrest is about the way we are treated by the police, who are brutal, racist and totally unacceptably insulting," the group said in the letter.

The authors called themselves "Boys of inner Noerrebro," referring to the immigrant neighborhood in Copenhagen where the unrest started on Feb. 10.

Police said 21 fires were set overnight Tuesday for a total of about 600 since the wave of arson started. The youths have burned cars, trash containers and schools. In some cases, they have pelted firefighters with rocks, but no serious injuries have been reported.

Did no one try nonviolent demonstrations such as protesting in papers or marching through the streets, rather than starting directly with rioting and carnage?

Expect this to be an excuse proffered by those who are rioting in France as the French government cracks down and arrests dozens over the weekend for involvement in the nightly rioting that occurs in the Paris suburbs.

These thugs are justifying the inexcusable rioting and destruction of public and private property because they claim that the police are racist or engage in harassment.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians summoned the Danish ambassador to give him a talking to over the cartoon republication. Egypt also banned issues of four papers from distribution in Egypt, including the Wall Street Journal:

The Egyptian government has summoned the ambassador of Denmark in Cairo to protest the reprinting of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

The Information Ministry also said it has banned issues of four Western newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal and Britain's The Observer, because they contained the reprints, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported.

Protests and riots erupted in many Muslim countries in 2006 when the cartoons, one showing the Prophet wearing a turban resembling a bomb, first appeared in a Danish daily. At least 50 people were killed and three Danish embassies attacked.

"The insistence of the Danish media to insult Islam again is unfortunate since the incident of publishing the cartoons has undoubtedly confirmed that such shameful acts only lead to more tension," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The insistence to complain bitterly about the publication of cartoons while remaining silent over the assassination plot to murder one of the cartoonists, is quite telling. Thousands of Egyptian students demonstrated and called for a boycott of Danish goods. You can't tell me that this is some spontaneous action - there is coordination going on here that smacks of Islamist intent.

What Passes For Calm

372 cars were torched in France over New Year's. Reuters (HT: ORD Neighbor) reports that the government considers this to be calm. Are you kidding me? Hundreds of cars get torched, and government officials write it off as being a calm evening?

Vandals torched 372 cars as France celebrated the New Year, down on the figure last year after a night the police described as "relatively calm."

Cars are burned fairly regularly in France and the image of vehicles in flames in poor suburbs became symbolic of riots in 2005 when angry youths set fire to thousands of cars.

There is usually an increase in the number of cars torched on New Year's Eve compared to other days of the year.

"The night was relatively calm, without notable incident, there were very few direct clashes with the security forces," said a spokesman for the national police.

At 12:00 a.m. EST, the Interior Ministry said 372 vehicles had been burned -- 144 in the Paris region and 228 in the rest of France. That was down from 397 last New Year's Eve.

There were scattered incidents with police, but that gets short shrift.

Reuters dutifully notes the 2006 riots, but it gets key information wrong. As many as 1,400 cars were torched in a single night, but in the three weeks of rioting, nearly 10,000 cars were barbequed, and several hundred businesses went up in smoke. The French have taken a laissez faire approach to the vandalism and car torchings, and the repercussions from this are long lasting.

Video Shows Emergency Crews Helping French Teens Before Riots Ensued

The video, shot by an amateur cameraman, also may provide evidence to contradict an initial conclusion by investigators that the police car was further damaged later in the evening by angry residents.

"There was no panic, neither by police or the people from around; everybody was calm," said the cameraman, who asked to be identified only by his first name, "Nicolas," in a telephone interview yesterday. "The firemen were very professional, focused on the bodies."

Although the video reportedly is compelling, Nicolas and others who have seen the images said that it does not answer the key question of whether this was purely a road accident or a criminal action by officers driving too fast.

The accident occurred at about 5 p.m. Sunday in Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, and ignited two nights of rioting in the town.

Meantime, in a speech to police officers yesterday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted that the violence following the accident was not the result of social deprivation in immigrant neighborhoods, but rather the work of criminals who he labeled a "thugocracy."

The video does give lie to the rumors that the police did nothing to assist the two teens before they died - the rumors that sparked a multi-day riot with police that injured more than 100 police, including dozens hit by gunfire - several seriously.

The video also suggests that reports that the police car involved in the accident was damaged by rioters following the incident may be untrue as well.

Despite Police Presence, French Riots Continue For Fourth Night

Despite the larger police presence, rioting continued in the Paris suburbs for a fourth night.

Wednesday was the fourth night of unrest that on prior nights resulted in violent clashes between angry youths and police, and the burning of buildings and cars from the Paris suburbs to the southern city of Toulouse.

No injuries to police were reported, Laurente Wittek, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, told CNN. She said Thursday that there had been a "clear reduction" in the rioting.

Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to punish those responsible for shooting at police. Sarkozy met Wednesday with the families of the youths on the motorcycle who were killed.

The worst bouts of violence were Monday and Tuesday nights, when police made arrests in the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, where the collision occurred.

In Toulouse, 20 cars were burned and rioters set fire to two libraries on Tuesday.

"There were some problems but we can say that it was much better than previous says," Wittek said.

Note that they're not exactly stating what happened, only that it was supposedly better than previous nights.

No-Pasaran points to another death that may or may not be connected with the rioting from Sunday night on one of the commuter train lines that run into the suburbs. That woman's murder doesn't get coverage, despite the brutality of it.

Should it surprise anyone that Sarkozy's ratings slipped? It shouldn't, and while the headline is trying to put it on the riots, there are also strikes to contend with, and Sarkozy is trying to reshape the economic landscape of France, and that has many entrenched interests upset.

Sarkozy does get points in my book by calling the riots hooliganocracy, instead of blaming it on the social woes in the banlieues.

For the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, the weekend's clashes in the banlieue of Paris "have nothing to do with a social crisis" but are an attempt for "hooliganocracy". In a speech on security to 2,000 policemen, he had harsh words for the wave of hooliganism and attacks on policemen (120 injured) following the death of two boys in Villiers sur Bel last Sunday: "I reject all attempts to make any criminal look like a victim of society and any revolt as a social problem". "If we allow a hooligan to be turned into a hero of the quarter" he warned "we are insulting the Republic and our work". Sarkozy defended the hard line taken against the chaos in the outskirts, already started when he was minister of the interior, in 2002: "This determined action is having its effect" he assured.

Meanwhile, the German Interior Minister warned that the rioting might spread beyond Paris and its suburbs, and Germany was on alert to that possibility. A Turkish leader in Germany made veiled threats about just that if social concerns of Turks aren't addressed.

... Kenan Kolat, head of the Turkish Association in Berlin and Brandenburg, told Spiegel Online that Berlin must improve its efforts to integrate immigrants, and warned that "copycat" incidents could occur in Germany.

Parisian Riots, Take Three

While reports claim that the French police responded in large numbers to the areas that have witnessed riots Sunday and Monday night, the rioters still managed to torch dozens of cars and several buildings. The violence is also spreading to other locales:

At least 120 police officers have been injured since violence broke out Sunday in the north Paris suburb of Villiers le Bel, touched off after two teenagers were killed in a motorbike collision with a police car.

Some 1,000 riot police clamped down Tuesday night on Villiers where they largely managed to prevent a third night of riots.

Dozens of cars and several buildings were still torched, mainly in towns around Villiers, the regional authorities said.

Youths threw petrol bombs at police and tried to set fire to a bus in Les Mureaux northwest of Paris. In Vitry sur Seine south of the capital, arsonists threw a flaming chair through the window of a primary school.

The regional prefect said there were "half as many" arson attacks compared with Monday night when 63 cars and five buildings went up in flames. He said "a few police officers" were injured.

In the southern city of Toulouse, about 20 cars were torched and a blaze was started in a library.

While Sarkozy's strong words are a departure from the slow response by the Chirac government in 2005, the police are still trying to get a handle on a situation that threatens to spiral out of control.

Police aren't simply responding to rioters who are torching cars, but thugs who are more than willing to fire on the police with the intent to kill.

The New York Times also tries to run with the meme that the rioting eased after two days, but the situation is far from settled. Dozens of cars torched and buildings burned out isn't settled. It is just more of the same.

UPDATE:
Tim Blair wonders whether the media needs a Dissident Frogman refresher on the basic fact that the thugs rioting are using firearms instead of trying to weasel around the fact. He also notes that the thugs have young kids running around at the behest of the old guys - so this is far more organized than simply rampaging youths of undetermined origin.

UPDATE:
News videos are touting this as an uneasy calm. How is this calm when dozens of cars are torched and buildings incinerated? The difference is that this go-around the French police are quickly bolstering the police presence in the banlieus as opposed to the lackidasical approach in 2005. It remains to be seen whether the efforts are sufficient to quell the violence.

A resident looks at a burnt showroom three days after the death of two teenagers, Moushin and Laramy, in a collision with a police car, in Villiers le Bel, northern Paris, November 28, 2007. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy met their family members before chairing a special security meeting on the violence with top ministers and weekly government meeting to try to end violence in suburbs after hundreds of police were deployed to prevent a third night of rioting. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau (FRANCE)

UPDATE:
No Pasaran has more videos of the carnage from last night.

Torch Citroen Trilogy

For a third straight day, rioters have caused mayhem and injury in the banlieus of Paris. The riots began after two kids were involved in a car accident with a police vehicle, but the circumstances aren't entirely clear:

An angry mob clashed with riot police and wrecked cars and buildings in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, after the Sunday night incident. Rioters bombarded police with Molotov cocktail bombs, bottles filled with acid and baseball bats, as the violence spread to the nearby towns of Longjumeau and Grigby Monday night.

More than 60 police officers were injured, with five still in hospital in a serious condition, according to reports in a number of French newspapers.

A spokesman for the police authorities in the Val d'Oise prefecture refused to confirm the numbers of police injuries, however. He told CNN that police feared the information could further enflame the situation.

The police spokesman said 60 cars, a library and car dealer's showroom had been set on fire in Villiers-le-Bel. He said a police station had also been damaged and 15 garbage cans set ablaze.

Security was tightened Tuesday with helicopters deployed to patrol over the town, the spokesman said.

The disturbances come two years after widespread rioting caused chaos in other Paris suburbs.

The 15- and 16-year-old boys killed in the Sunday evening crash were both sons of African immigrants, police said. They died when their motorbike hit a patrol car in Villiers-le-Bel, police said.

Some residents in the town, populated largely by immigrants and their French-born children, accused police of fleeing the scene without helping the boys.

However three eyewitnesses, interviewed on TV, say the police did not run from the scene but tried to revive the two boys with mouth to mouth resucitation.

Police said the teens drove through a red light without wearing helmets and on an unregistered bike.

Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the victims, told French media the police involved should be arrested. "Everyone knew the two boys here," he told French radio. "What happened, that's not violence, it's rage."

So, far from the police being at fault for the unfortunate deaths of these two kids, it appears that locals automatically assumed the police were at fault and began rioting after spreading the rumor that police did nothing to help the kids who were struck.

The police appear to have done nothing wrong in the initial car accident, especially if the two boys ran the red light and weren't wearing safety helmets. As for the rioting, the police have not done nearly enough to quell the violence by arresting those instigating the riots or those involved in the roving mobs.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy will be meeting with the French Prime Minister to deal with the security issue, even as the riots have spread to other towns surrounding Paris.

Clashes spread to other suburbs north of Paris after midnight, with new riots breaking out in Cergy, Ermont and Goussainville, also in the Val d’Oise area. In all, five buildings - the Bellevue library, two schools, a supermarket and a public accounts office - were burned down, and 63 vehicles were set on fire.

Early Tuesday, a helicopter hovered over Villiers-le-Bel, 20 km north of the French capital, "to locate people stirring up trouble," a police officer told AFP.

It looks like the situation is set to repeat the 2005 riots, which is bad news for France. Nearly 10,000 cars were torched in those riots that lasted nearly three weeks.

Thus far, the number of cars torched hasn't been mentioned, but the number of police injured in the riots is far in excess of those earlier riots. Thus far, 70 police have been injured in the clashes with rioters and a number of buildings have been looted or torched.

A state prosecutor is looking into the accident:

State prosecutor Marie-Therese Givry on Monday ordered an internal police investigation for "involuntary manslaughter and failure to assist persons in danger." Speaking to reporters, she later said witnesses had confirmed the police officers' version that the bike smashed into the side of their car during a routine patrol.

Again, based on eyewitnesses and the police version, the police did nothing wrong, but the incident was nonetheless used as a spark to launch in to yet more rioting.

Hot Air is also covering the riots.

This post will be updated throughout the day as events warrant.

UPDATE:
The rioting has been far more intense and violent than the 2005 riots. The rioters have been firing on police with rifles and shotguns.

The violence was more intense than during three weeks of rioting in 2005, said the official, Patrice Ribeiro. Police were shot at and are facing “genuine urban guerillas with conventional weapons and hunting weapons,” Mr. Ribeiro said.

Some officers were hit by shotgun pellets, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said. She said there were six serious injuries, “people who notably were struck in the face and close to the eyes.”

The riots were triggered by the deaths of two teens killed in a crash with a police patrol car on Sunday in Villiers-le-Bel, a town of public housing blocks home to a mix of Arab, black and white residents in Paris' northern suburbs.

Again, the rumor that the police did nothing to help the children is spread despite the fact that it simply didn't happen.

36 cars were torched in Villiers-le-Bel and surrounding areas by the rioting thugs. There will be more.

UPDATE:
The number of police injured last night was 86 and the rioters aren't going to be satisfied until they kill policemen (several were seriously injured) and French police union officials are saying that the use of firearms by the rioters is systematic. This isn't a good sign, and it's already nighttime in Paris.

"Two things are cause for anxiety," Douhane Mohamed of the Synergie police union was quoted as saying by the news agency AFP.

"Signs that the violence is spreading to neighbouring areas, which have already had their share of burned cars, and the almost systematic use of fire-arms against police."

Night three of the rioting is upon us. Expect a greater number of carbeques, more police officers injured, and more property damage.

It also appears that the rioters are using kids as spotters to help the rioters stay ahead of the police.

There are also signs that children as young as ten on bikes acting as spotters and a youth with a scanner tuned to police frequencies to keep one step ahead of the police.

UPDATE:
Gateway Pundit has a bunch of photos, maps, and video of the ongoing situation in France.

UPDATE:
While police are increasing their presence in the hopes of clamping down on rioting, which is far more violent than earlier riots over the past two years, I'm not confident that they'll succeed.

Meanwhile, one of the two kids killed in the incident who sparked the last two days of rioting had maintained a blog.

Since the riots started two days ago, 120+ police officers have been injured, four of them seriously after being hit by buckshot from hunting weapons, according to police figures. In three weeks of rioting in 2005, 200 officers were injured. Many of those injured over the past two days have been hit by gunfire.

Paris Burning Again: UPDATED - Riots Underway Second Night

Once again, the youths of unidentified extract are rioting in Paris. They're busy torching cars and getting into scrums with police. The situation is again ready to overwhelm police, and this is a major test for French President Sarkozy, who is coming off a significant achievement in dealing with the French transit unions.

The tally on Sunday’s punk jihad outburst is heavy and rising.

Twenty-five policemen injured, dozens of cars burned, shops destroyed, individuals assaulted. Blind with rage, the rampaging mob found time to steal before smashing and burning. For the brother of Mushin, one of the victims, “it’s not violence, it’s an expression of rage.”

Journalists are unwelcome, often assaulted, but they are getting the story out.

According to concurrent reports, the rage broke out immediately. The police claim the motorcycle ran into their patrol car at an intersection; the enraged know better—the police car in hot pursuit of the innocent boys, Moushin and Larami, smashed into their motorcycle. Moushin’s uncle was outraged because the bodies were left lying in the fire station. But it seems that the forces that came to pick them up had to turn back because they were attacked. The boys had gone out to do a little bit of rodeo, a favorite sport in the banlieue projects. Le Parisien posted You Tube videos filmed by reckless kids.

Again, the violence has resulted in torchings and looting:

A police station in the town of Villiers-le-Bel was set on fire and another one in neighbouring Arnouville was wrecked.

The Arnouville-Villiers-le-Bel train station was also damaged.

This report suggests that the police chief tried to negotiate with the bystanders, and was beaten for his efforts.

Tension was palpable Monday as sanitation workers swept broken glass and other debris off the streets of Villiers-le-Bel. Many people predicted more violence after nightfall.

In Sunday's violence, eight people were arrested and 21 police officers were injured — including the town's police chief, who was beaten in the face when he tried to negotiate with the rioters, a police official said.

UPDATE:
Others tracking the latest rioting in Paris and the banlieus include: Michelle Malkin, Tel Chai Nation, hyscience, James Joyner, and snapped shot.

No Pasaran [link added] is also providing some coverage.

UPDATE:
Night two of the Paris riots is underway.

Rampaging youths threw Molotov cocktails and torched cars in a troubled neighborhood outside Paris in a second night of street violence Monday after two teenagers on a motorbike were killed in a crash with a police car.

Anger focused on police, with residents claiming that officers left the scene of Sunday's crash without helping the boys — a claim officials cast doubt on but which the police were investigating.

Again, no number of vehicles torched in this report, and they're trying to pin the blame on the police for another unfortunate incident involving teens killed by police. The default setting in these communities is to riot and issue demands.

More on tonight's riots here.

UPDATE:
Video hat tip courtesy of Ashamed to be Dutch at LGF:

Amsterdam Riots Continue For Sixth Day

Riots continue to pummel the city of Amsterdam for a sixth day. They began when a Muslim immigrant stabbed two police officers, and was shot and killed.

Disturbances broke out for a sixth successive night in an immigrant quarter of Amsterdam on Saturday when four cars were set on fire, police said.

The unrest started after police shot dead a man of Moroccan origin last weekend who had stabbed and injured two officers.

Saturday's fires brought the total number of burnt cars to 11, a police spokesman said.

The 22-year-old Moroccan had been undergoing treatment for psychiatric problems and had in the past been questioned over contacts with Islamic militants linked to the murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

The guy posed a mortal threat to the police, which acted appropriately given the circumstances (he had already stabbed two police officers), and yet riots ensue?

It doesn't take much to set off these immigrant populations, does it?

Six days of this, and no sign of it letting up.

The circumstances parallel those that launched the Paris riots two years ago, and one can only hope that the Dutch authorities can keep things from spiraling out of control.

Police consider the judges to be too soft on Moroccan immigrants who have committed crimes. Revolving door justice also is playing a role as some of those involved have been arrested and released multiple times.

Moroccan organizations are urging calm, though I wonder how much good it is doing considering that these same organizations are calling on the authorities to be more restrained, which is a recipe for disaster.

UPDATE:
Pajamas Media has a good roundup and background on the situation in Amsterdam.

Hot in the City

France is nearly back to normal. Only about 200 cars were torched overnight.

Some 200 cars were torched and 80 people arrested overnight, fewer than the 365 vehicles set alight on Monday and the 730 cars ignited on Sunday in the hours following the right-winger’s defeat of Royal.

Protests turned violent yesterday in Paris and in the second city of Lyon while a UMP party office was set on fire in the town of Villeurbanne, near Lyon.

Sarkozy, a tough-talking former interior minister, is hated by many in the high-immigrant suburbs after he described young delinquents as "rabble" and for his stance on law and order and immigration.

The new president will have a busy schedule when he begins his ambitious bid to overhaul France’s lacklustre economy. He has vowed to cut taxes for the wealthy, trim unemployment and curb the power of the country’s powerful unions.

I have a quibble over the Monday tally, as I've seen other reports putting the figure at 500 cars torched. These figures also omit damage done to other properties - including businessses and buses.

UPDATE:
Rioters played cat and mouse with police in Paris and elsewhere.

UPDATE:
No Pasaran reports that university students have voted to preemptively strike against the Sarkozy government and the possibility that he might bring about changes to the employment law. From Reuters:

Around 500 students voted to support the strike action and protesters immediately blocked access to the Tolbiac annexe of the Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne university.

"There were no courses and pickets have been set up after the vote," said a spokesperson for the student union.

Conservative leader Sarkozy was elected president on Sunday, promising economic and social reforms that have alarmed many trade unionists.

The higher education minister, Francois Goulard, called on the head of the Paris I site to make sure university courses continued and to guarantee access to the Tolbiac buildings.

"It is totally unacceptable that an extremist minority, showing their scorn for democracy, should try to oppose the enactment of the president of the republic's program," Goulard said in a statement.

Sarkozy has promised to make higher education reform a priority and wants to introduce a law before the end of the summer to give universities more autonomy, handing them power to hire and fire staff, set salaries and manage their assets.

The folks who are going on strike have no idea what exactly will be enacted, and are opposed to change simply because it means change. No one knows what the actual legislation will bring, or how it will affect all those who are going on strike (or thinking about it), but they've decided to strike in any event.

They aren't even bothering to give the Sarkozy government a chance. Figures.

Another Hot Night in France

Once again, the rioters took to the streets and clashed with police and torched cars.

Once again, the media was underreporting the level of violence.

There were riots in Paris, Nantes, and other cities scattered throughout the country.

Le Figaro posts the carnage from last night, and it was widespread and violent. Teargas was required to disperse the crowds and the thugs damaged cars, businesses, and anything else in their path.

This article claims at least 500 cars were torched last night. Of course, the article also blames Sarkozy for the violence, and not the rioters and their agitators.

More than 500 cars were set alight in cities and suburbs across the country, according to police reports gathered by AFP, many more than the 70 to 100 vehicles that are attacked on an average night.

Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande appealed for calm, warning that the violence could trigger a heavy police clampdown.

“Those who are waging this violence are playing into the hands of those who want more order, who want to be tougher,” he told RTL radio. “There can be disappointment, anger, frustration, but the only way to respond is at the ballot box. There is no other way.”

France is holding legislative elections on June 10 and 17 that will decide whether the new president will have the strong majority needed to push through his programme of tough economic and social reforms.

Socialist Segolene Royal, whose hope of becoming France’s first woman president was dashed on Sunday with the Sarkozy victory, had warned that France could slide into unrest if the rightwinger won the election.

Sarkozy, a tough-talking former interior minister, is hated in the high-immigrant suburbs for calling young delinquents “rabble” and for his stance on law and order.

It was under his watch that the suburbs exploded into riots for three weeks in October and November 2005, in which hundreds of buildings were burned and thousands of cars torched across the country.

In the hours that followed Sarkozy’s victory speech on Sunday, police said 730 vehicles burned across France and 600 people were arrested. A total of 78 police officers were injured.

UPDATE:
This latest round of rioting isn't due to the same groups. This time, the rioters appear to be predominantly white thugs, not the foreign immigrants that were the bulk of rioters in the 2005 riots.

UPDATE:
Where is the media coverage of this? One has to wonder just what effect a law passed that bans citizens from videotaping these riots:

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The problem is that the credentialed journalists aren't doing the job at all. They're missing in action. They aren't providing accurate or up to date information about what is going on in France, and citizens who might be inclined to videotape these riots are wondering whether they might face criminal charges themselves for capturing newsworthy events for posterity. The law makes little sense and stifles free speech, and it also means that journalists are free to ignore the riots because there isn't a legal alternative. That there are people still willing to flaunt the law and tape the riots is a credit to those who are doing so.

French Car-Be-Que

Since Nicholas Sarkozy won the runoff election, anarchists and thugs have been causing quite a bit of mayhem throughout France. Hundreds of cars have been torched, and at last count, the toll was at least 400.

Sarkozy is pushing for a reform plan that would improve the lagging economic situation, which is particularly dire in the banlieus. High unemployment has been a serious problem for years, with the rate hovering around 8.7%, which is nearly double the rate in the United States. The banlieus see an unemployment rate that is much closer to 25%.

Sarkozy won a mandate and the exit polling seems to bear out that fact:

The win gave Sarkozy a strong mandate for his vision of France's future: He wants to free up labor markets, calls France's 35-hour work week "absurd" and plans tougher measures on crime and immigration.

"The people of France have chosen change," Sarkozy told cheering supporters in a victory speech that sketched out a stronger global role for France and renewed partnership with the United States.

Exit polls offered some surprises. Some 49 percent of blue-collar workers — traditionally leftist voters — chose Sarkozy, according to an Ipsos/Dell poll. Some 32 percent of people who usually vote for the Greens and 14 percent who normally support the far-left also went with Sarkozy. The poll surveyed 3,609 voters and had a margin of error of about 2 percent.

Sarkozy is sure to run into trouble with changes to the 35 hour work week from student groups and unions. They like the rules the way they are, even though it puts France at a competitive disadvantage against other European countries, let alone the US, China, or Japan.

As always, check with No Pasaran for the latest videos and updates on the volatile situation in France.

UPDATE:
Seems that there are some discrepancies between tallies from last night's violence. This report is troublesome, as it suggests that the media and/or government is trying to downplay the violence and vitrol:

Official figures released early on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 367 cars and injured 28 policemen across France, and 270 people were arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.

Reports and eyewitness accounts suggested the violence was worse than the official statistics indicated because they did not include other incidents such as petrol bomb attacks on buses near Paris or smashed up shop fronts in large cities.

The final national tally was also at odds with local figures. Paris officials said 33 policemen were injured in the capital, five more than the national total cited by police.

Leftist sympathisers clashed with police in Paris's Bastille Square after Sarkozy's comprehensive victory against Socialist Segolene Royal and security forces fired repeated rounds of tear gas to break up the crowd.

Youths went on the rampage in adjoining streets, smashing phone cabins and shop windows as they moved towards the nearby Gare de Lyon station.

"Everyone got hit. We heard people were at the Bastille but we didn't expect them to come up here," said Sophie Wolkowitch, whose pharmacy near the station had its windows smashed and suffered 14,000 euros ($19,000) of damage.

Similar attacks were reported in the southeastern city of Lyon and the southern city of Toulouse. Bus shelters were smashed in the northern city of Lille and a school was set on fire in the Paris suburb of Evry.

For those unsure of where these events are taking place, here's a map of Paris.

UPDATE:
Forget discrepancies. The figures of 367 cars torched was wrong by half. The true number of cars torched was 730. The carnage was far more pervasive than the media and government was letting on.

Hundreds of people were arrested in France overnight in clashes between police and protesters angry over conservative Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election, police said.

Official figures released on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 730 cars and injured 78 policemen across France, with 592 people arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.

The tally was revised sharply upwards after an initial report appeared to downplay the clashes and was at odds with local police figures and eyewitness reports, which suggested widespread troubles in numerous French cities.

As I noted above, the government and media outlets have been downplaying the violence across France for years - they accepted 40 cars torched a night before the 2005 riots, and accepted 100 cars torched nightly after the 2005 riots. Now, they undercount the rioting because it exposes the problems with law enforcement across France and a creeping acceptance of the thuggish actions by anarchists and leftists. 100 cars were torched in Lille alone.

As I noted at LGF, you have to take the media reports with a grain of salt as they are pushing their own agenda, and aren't strictly reporting news and providing facts. They are purposefully underreporting and minimizing the violence. The same phenomenon happened during the reporting of the 2005 riots, and history appears to be repeating itself. The problem is that the violence is too widespread and documented for the reports to stand.

UPDATE:
Dissident Frogman ponders Sarkozy's election and what it really means for the French. His advice:

Don’t throw away that “F the French” tee-shirt just yet.

That goes well with my comments from yesterday where actions speak louder than words and it remains to be seen whether Sarkozy gets it.

UPDATE:
Gateway Pundit wonders whether the Islamists in France were getting uppity over comments Sarkozy made upon winning the election:

To women...
I want to launch an appeal to all those in the world who believe in the values of tolerance, freedom, democracy, humanism.

To all those who are persecuted by tyranny and dictatorship, to all children around the world, to all women ill-treated in the world, I want to say that the pride and the duty of France will be to be on their side.

France will be on the side of those Libyan nurses, locked up for eight years.

France will not abandon Ingrid Betancourt.

France will not abandon women forced to wear the burka.

That's not going to sit well with the Islamists one bit. Are the Islamists going to strike out and torch hundreds of cars? Possibly. Gateway also points out that Algerian press fingered the Jews for Sarkozy's win. It always comes back to the usual themes in world history - when all else fails, blame the Jews.

Thus far more than 600 were arrested around the country. I think that number is going to surge in coming days to get things under control.

Gina Cobb has further thoughts on the situation.

Photo of the Day

 

The Eiffel Tower in all its daylight splendor.

This post will serve as your repository for posting your best and brightest.

Video of Gare du Nord Riots

Via No Pasaran:



It's French television, but the scenes of mayhem inside the station are easily understood.

UPDATE:
Seems that some media outlets are making connections between the thugs involved at the train station rioting and the 2005 Paris riots.

The rampage by youths, many apparently of African or North African descent, at a major rail hub Tuesday became an instant campaign issue in the French presidential race. It was a jarring reminder of the social tensions France's new leader will contend with when he or she takes power in May.

Front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy of the governing right called the violence at the Gare du Nord unacceptable. His main rival, Socialist Segolene Royal, blamed Sarkozy's camp, saying the right's policing policies were an utter failure.

Anger erupted after a 32-year-old man without a Metro ticket punched two inspectors during a routine check, police said. The man, an illegal alien from Congo who has challenged France's efforts to expel him, had been convicted in 2004 for insulting a magistrate, police unions said.

Dozens of youths gathered to defend the man from ticket agents, and the group swelled to 300 people and grew more and more aggressive, police said.

The youths wielded metal bars, smashed windows, looted stores and injured eight train agents and a police officer, police authorities said.

Rail lines connect Gare du Nord to the same troubled suburbs north of Paris that were gripped by rioting in October and November 2005. That violence was born of pent-up anger -- especially among youths of Arab and African origin -- over years of high unemployment, racial discrimination and economic inequality.

Since then, sporadic incidents have broken out in suburbs that many middle-class French people avoid. The violence at Gare du Nord was unusual because it is in the heart of Paris, the terminal for Eurostar trains linking France to Britain.

Far-right presidential candidate Philippe de Villiers, who wants to stop immigration to France, said the violence shows "there are ethnic gangs installed on our territory and who now feel that even the Gare du Nord is theirs."

The check "got out of hand and transformed into urban guerrilla warfare, into unacceptable, intolerable violence," new Interior Minister Francois Baroin told Europe 1 radio. "Nothing can justify what happened."

The check didn't get out of hand. The person being checked got out of hand and the banlieu thugs used it as an excuse to rampage again.

Also, the issue relating to the riots has been a part of the French political scene since the Chirac government was a complete failure to not only contain the rioting, but failed to institute changes to its economic and social policies. Those failures continue to plague the French economy and society, but those behind the rioting must be held accountable for their actions as well.

UPDATE:
Fausta has a much more extensive posting on the rioting, which never really ended. The media's coverage of the rioting did.

Parisian Teen Thugs Riot Again

About 100 youths clashed Tuesday with subway inspectors and police at Paris' Gare du Nord metro station, which was closed to traffic following the altercation, transportation officials said.

A standoff between police officers and about 100 youths was still under way early Tuesday evening, said officials from Paris' RATP public transport authority.

The incident began when one of the youths punched two subway inspectors during a routine ticket check at the Gare du Nord, in northeastern Paris, officials said. Youths also attacked the inspectors and later turned on police officers patrolling the station, officials said.

The Gare du Nord is one access point into Paris from the banlieus that were set alight last year (and continue to regularly turn cars into rotisseries). It seems that the thugs are spoiling for attacks.

This was not one of the areas we visited in Paris while there last week.

Downplaying the New Year's Carbeque

While that link gives you the original French report, the translated report reads as bad news for the French, and the French authorities. Basically, the total number of cars torched on New Year's Eve was 70% high than the figure provided by the French Interior Ministry the week following New Years. The number of cars torched on New Years was not 396 or even 483 as No Pasaran notes, but rather 683. Law enforcement and the media purposefully downplayed and underreported the number of cars torched. They wanted you to think that the situation in France had calmed down, but the figures show that not to be the case.

Will anyone hold the French government responsible for the continuing inability to contain the violence? Or does anyone in France care about the ongoing carbeques that have now blended into the background.

France Rings In New Year With Carbeques

400 cars torched over New Years? That's right up with the hundreds of cars torched during the middle of the November 2005 riots in the banlieus.

That's a pretty significant number, and one has to wonder about the media coverage - or should I say the lack thereof.

It's more than a year after the riots and the so-called economic answers haven't been implemented or haven't worked. Law enforcement is increasingly targeted by the thugs who are doing the nightly carbeques, and the situation continues to slowly get worse. Before the 2005 riots, 40 cars were torched on a 'normal' night. In 2006, that figure increased to over 100 per night. What are we going to see in 2006? 150-200 a night? That's the direction things are headed considering that the French police are still treating large parts of the banlieus as no-gos.

HT: Charles at LGF

UPDATE:
No Pasaran notes that the French are now taking the carbeque statistic and breaking out those cars deliberately set alight by the thugs and those that were burned because they were too close to the ones being torched.

UPDATE:
The media is doing its best to make it appear as though things are somehow quieter this year than last. That would be doing everyone a serious disservice. The media wants you to think that this level of violence is relatively low, but think again. Depending on which source you use, the violence this year ranges from being far worse than last year to being only very slightly better than last year (and that would require working with the worst numbers presented for last year). According to Foxnews' coverage of New Years 2006:

Police were especially cautious this time because of the wave of rioting and car-torchings that broke out for three weeks starting in late October. A state of emergency imposed during the rioting is still in effect.

In a pre-dawn tally Sunday, the Interior Ministry reported 249 vehicles burned throughout the country, including 84 in the Ile-de-France region that includes Paris. Nearly 200 arrests were reported, though it wasn't clear how many were linked to the vandalism.

Other reports put the number of cars torched at anywhere from343 to 425.