Why is Paris burning?

[aikoaiko]

I know there has been some historical issues from the colonialization of North Africa, but what is going on?

[blogslut]

1. some kids were accidentally electrocuted

...when they were being chased by paris police. this is my understanding of how the riots got started

[formernaderite]

12. I read the police weren't even chasing them...

they had been looking for someone else, but these two got nervous. The car burnings and lootings have been going on for a long time...this is just a compounded event.
As civilized as Europe seems, they've never made much attempt at integrating their populations. It's always been assumed that you move to "said" country and try to become one of them. These populations arrive not wishing to adopt the local culture....The powder keg has been lit. I actually fear for these minority populations over there.

[htuttle]

2. The whole situation sounds very close to the LA riots in the US

There was a background of existing tension from economic issues (and the French government's recent crackdowns against Muslims), and the spark that set it off was an allegation of police misconduct/racism (the incident detailed by the other post).

[kurth]

3. Muslim kids alienated and shunned by French society

Prolem is most of them were born in France and are French citizens, but France is a country that refuses to recognize race as an identifier ("Liberté, Fraternité, Egalité"). In fact, the French government for years had no earthly idea how many black or brown people lived in France (maybe they still don't - or refuse to give out official statistics...)

Racial discrimination in France is rampant, and the French government ignores it.

[mshasta]

6. ....correct

they are living as a second class citizens specially schools are really discriminatory against blacks..

http://medias.lemonde.fr/mmpub/edt/ill/2005/11/04/v_7_ill_706724_05110512_stagiaires+x1p1_ori.jpg

[zbdent]

4. If you smoke after sex, you're doing it too fast.

Oh, I see. Not THAT Paris . . .

[lildreamer316]

5. Groan.

you evil evil person.:spank:

[zbdent]

13. I'm not evil . . .

just very, very twisted . . .

:evilgrin:

[SoCalDem]

7. Colonialism blowback..A category 15

Colonies

Algeria
Morocco
Senegal
Mauritania
French Guinea (now Guinea)
Côte d'Ivoire
French Sudan (now Mali)
Niger
Dahomey (now Bénin)
Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso)
Togo
Gabon
Middle Congo
Ubangui Shari (now Centrafrican Republic)
Chad
Cameroon
French Somali Coast
Republic of Djibouti.
Tunisia
Benin
Republic of the Congo

There is a modern day consequence of the "piracy and looting" of days past. When the French went to all these countries and a lot more in the indian Ocean, they forced their language and culture on the indigenous people, and when they were given "independence" during the last century, the locals thought of themselves as French too.. They managed to hold onto their own cultures, religion and native languages, but they were free to travel to France, and to settle there.. Why would they NOT?

France has segregated these people, used their cheap labor, and more or less ignored them for DECADES...Most of these people are not white-skinned, non-practicing Catholics with 1 or 2 children per family.. They are Muslinms with many children. They have been held in a "servant" status for a long time, and they are now demanding to be noticed..


France is getting a taste of a Civil Rights movement, with a twist. The "real" French people are desperatly afraid of the people they have used forever..

[Selatius]

15. It's time for France to face its own Jim Crow legacy n/t

[SoCalDem]

18. Way past time.. Generations of "cheap labor" is starting to cost

them more than they may be willing to pay.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Same reason it burned in 1789. Poverty, unemployment, etc.

And, throw in some racism, and brutal cops.

9. I was surprised when all the those elderly

people died in the heat wave a few years ago. I had the misconception the French took better care of their elderly than the US does.

But this is off the subject.

I think they said this area is poverty-striken and people sell drugs to get by. Like our ghettos.

[TahitiNut]

10. Trivia: The reason the poorest neighborhoods are east of Paris ...

... is because that's the direction the Germans invade from.

Indeed, this was the reason given me by English-speaking Parisians more than once. I lived (in a Novotel) and worked in Aulnay-sous-Bois, where some of the riots have occurred, for 3.5 months in the late 70s. It's in the St. Denis region and just past Le Bourget northeast of Paris. The suburbs around there were characterized as inhabited by "socialists and communists" according to some folks I worked with.

[aikoaiko]

11. It makes wonder if there is hope for us in the USA

I've only been to Paris as a tourist, but it always seemed like the French were decent to their underclass. If the French can't deal with an underclass problem with all their taxes to redistribute wealth and progressive programs, what hope is there for us?

[Selatius]

14. Crushing poverty is the cause of this. Discrimination makes it worse.

This is France's version of the L.A. Riots. People like to claim France is a "socialist" country, but that's a strawman. France's economy is built on capitalism just like the US with social programs tacked on to create "humane capitalism." It is a mixed economy as a result, but capitalism, in practice, always has its winners and losers, and these people out in the streets are the losers who've been left behind to rot in the block tower ghettos around Paris built in the 1960s to house cheap labor from North Africa to take the jobs "nobody wants to do."

[crankybubba]

16. years of ingrained

racism and lack of social intergration. are at the root of the problems now. I agree colonialism is the grandparent of the problem and it will be interesting to see how the majority in france react to the problem

[VOX]

17. I thought this thread was about an heiress with a urinary tract infection.

:evilgrin: My apologies, I couldn't resist. :evilgrin:

That out of the way, I agree with the post upthread likening the civic upheaval in Paris to what happened in Los Angeles in 1965 and 1992. A significant segment of any population can only be held down, ignored and brutalized for so long.