LE PEN MIGHTIER:

French riots underscore deeper problems (ELIZABETH BRYANT, 11/02/05, UPI)

Six straight nights of clashes between French police and rioters in Paris-area housing projects are laying bare simmering discrimination and ethnic tensions lying just under the country's officially colorblind creed of liberty, equality and fraternity.

The riots have gone far beyond law-and-order tangles between youths hurling stones and Molotov cocktails and police responding with tear gas. Eighteen months before French presidential elections, they have taken on a raw political edge as they fuel partisan bickering and existing divisions within the ruling center-right Union for a Popular Movement party. [...]

Helping fuel the riots has been the tough and controversial response of French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy -- who sparked outrage earlier this year by vowing to "clean out" another suburb rocked by ethnic violence -- blasted this week's rioters as "scum." His latest remarks have unleashed a tempest of indignation, with some of the shrillest criticism coming from opposition leftist lawmakers.

"When you are the interior minister and the No. 2 man in the government, you need to master your choice of words," Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande told reporters Wednesday. "Of course one must speak clearly. But one is not obliged to stigmatize a population. One is not obliged...to create conflicts."

Sarkozy's handling of the situation has also sparked criticism within his own UMP party, further highlighting the rivalry between him and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. Both men are believed to be eyeing a bid for the 2007 presidential elections.

Azouz Begag, a junior government minister who is close to de Villepin, said he "contested" Sarkozy's methods in handling the rioting.

"It's by fighting against discrimination that these youths are victims that we can restore order, the order of equality," Begag, an ethnic-immigrant himself, told Liberation newspaper in an interview published Tuesday. [...]

The current clashes have profited one group however: The far-right, anti-immigration National Front party. Appealing to the same populist fears of ethnic violence, the Front's leader Jean-Marie Le Pen placed second in the 2002 elections.

Some experts such as Jacqueline Costa Lascoux speculate the Front's law-and-order platform may go down even better in the next election.

"You'll notice that the extreme right is saying nothing, is doing nothing right now," said Costa-Lascoux, who heads the Observatory on Immigration and Integration, an independent body based in Paris. "They don't have to do anything but wait."

"Not only will we have another extreme candidate in the second round of voting, but I fear he'll get a lot of votes," she added of the 2007 elections.

If the mainstream Right were to dump Sarkoczy for being too tough you wonder whether they'd not be the party to miss the run-off this time.

MORE:
Seventh Day of Violence Erupts Near Paris ( JOCELYN GECKER, 11/02/05, Associated Press)

Menacing youths smoked cigarettes in doorways Wednesday and hulks of burned cars littered the tough streets of Paris' northeastern suburbs scarred by a week of riots that left residents on edge and sent the government into crisis mode.

In a seventh consecutive night of skirmishes, young people threw rocks at police Wednesday in six suburbs in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris - about a 40-minute drive from the Eiffel Tower. In one of them, Le Blanc-Mesnil, about a dozen cars burned and curious residents, some in slippers and bathrobes, poured into the streets.

Some said the unrest - sparked by the accidental deaths of two teenagers last week - is an expression of frustration over grinding unemployment and police harassment in the communities, where many North African immigrants live. ``It is not going to end. It is going to explode,'' said an 18-year-old who would only give his name as Amine.

Suburbs are ablaze with anger: Widespread rioting is forcing the French Government to address its failure to integrate a large immigrant population (Charles Bremner, 11/03/05, Times of London)

ACRID fumes lingered in the air of Aulnay-sous-Bois yesterday as Mohamed and Sidi looked at the charred shell of a delivery van and explained why violence had erupted in the northeastern suburbs of Paris.

“Sarko has declared war on the estates, so it’s war he’s going to get,” said Mohamed, 20, the son of a Moroccan immigrant. Sidi, his friend, concurred: the suburbs had endured another night of street fighting because Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister and would-be President of France, had “disrespected” the estates with his tough talk and harsh police actions.

More than 200 vehicles were burnt across the north Paris region and 35 people were detained when rioting that began in Clichy-sous-Bois last Thursday spread to nearby Aulnay, Sevran and other districts in Seine-Saint-Denis, the département that rings the northeast quadrant of Paris.

Last night gangs of youths rampaged through six districts, hurling stones at police. In the suburb of Le Blanc-Mesnil residents, some wearing bathrobes and slippers, poured into the streets to watch cars being set ablaze.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2005 6:29 PM