France Watch

[Jerry Cornelius]

What's the status of Muslims in French society? What's the model: Integration or multi-culturalism . . . or both? What's the prognosis?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...wmuslims05.xml

[Mespheber]

For years, french integration policy has been: "it is our way or the highway". After the war, we built fast buildings said to be temporary, some are still used in suburbs and occupied by the poorest of society. In these areas, no local police, no administrative centers so the gangs increase for decades. Most of muslims are peaceful and have no interest in street guerillas, considering that many of them left their countries because of war or dictatorship.

However, mister Sarkosy likes to use this kind of propaganda and fear of foreigners to be elected (next year...) as a president.

[Morgan Kane]

Sarkozy as minister of police is a demagogue .....

He contributes to the problems he wants to solve !

1) he makes a religious problem of a social problem

2) the police being in the poor districts as a police of proximity, kown by the local people he takes of the men and the police loses the contact with the population

3 ) the police is seen as the enemy, arrogant and so on

4 ) in a very difficult situation, with the help of medias, he creates riots ..... and two young men who are afraid of the police die to escape a control

5) these last days, policemen are attacked by a mob .. .policemen shout that it was a trap .. .when it was just young men playing softball ....

6 ) two days later, at les Mureaux plicemen arrest a trespasser and hurt him, almost torturing him ..... roughly 20 or 30 young protest and act ...... The media make a story as 100 or 150 mobsters agressed decent policement ...

( Do you remember Rodney King business)

7 ) yesterday 100 policemen come to les Mureaux to arrest 5 persons in presence of the media. They fond one after breaking doors, manhandling children of ten or less and so on ..... during Ramadan, a period during which muslims are often nervous ..... .

Incidentally, in at least one case, they open the wrong door.

That does not means that there are no problems, social problems, racism, poverty, too much weapons and so on ... and integrist islamists who feed on the problems.

[Mespheber]

My apologies, Morgan, but Ramadan is a month of peace. During this period, they are on diet of food and drink during daylight, but also mind diet and shall not arguee or say bad words. Also, it is a month of celebration, sharing. Except that police only share with them the taste of their boots.

[David Mosley]

There was an interview on this morning's Radio 4 Today programme with Professor Robert Putnam about his theory of "social connectivity". (Click on link to hear it.) Basically he seems to propound the view that society consists of 'bonding' and 'bridging' among communities.

Bonding is the links a community has with itself, i.e. a white person 'bonds' with another 'white' person because they're both white and (may) share similar cultural backgrounds. Bridging is where a community reaches out to other (culturally different?) communities, i.e. a 'white' person 'bridges' with a 'black' person because they have different cultural backgrounds.

Note: This is not specifically about the colour of a person's skin; you could equally talk about straight/gay communities or even male/female relationships. I'm probably grossly simplifying Prof. Putnam's opinions, but I trust you get the gist of it. Listen to the interview to hear from Putnam's own mouth.

Putnam made the point that when a foreign communities emigrates to an existing community the thing is not to make the foreigner conform to the indigenious population, but to produce a "new" community which includes both communities. I think he used the phrase "a new us" in the context of an 'us and them' dichotomy, whereby the 'us' doesn't attempt to 'convert' the 'them' into 'us' but instead assimilate the 'them' into 'us' so that 'us' changes as well.

I'm expressing this very poorly, I'm afraid, so can only repeat that if you're interested you should listen to the interview itself.

[Morgan Kane]

My apologies, Morgan, but Ramadan is a month of peace. During this period, they are on diet of food and drink during daylight, but also mind diet and shall not arguee or say bad words. Also, it is a month of celebration, sharing. Except that police only share with them the taste of their boots.

I know the theory, but experience shows that not eating and drinking for whole days can be difficult for temper .......

and during ramadan some muslims are very touchy ......

and fondamentalists have a curious sense of peace ......

[Mespheber]

Touchy muslims are the same guys, with or without Ramadan. A few of them, but enough to create troubles. Most of the time, lack of food make people weak and an arguee is a waste of energy.

Also, the don't eat during day only, at night, it's a fat party... Cookies, zlebia, makroud... Yum! Yum! I'm not muslim but I just love their meals and sweets.

[Jerry Cornelius]

The Telegraph (or is that Torygraph?) has run another article on the subject of the police and muslim North Africans in France:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../wfrance17.xml

Dominique de Villepin is again at the center of the controversey. In America and Britain such probelms would be police matters? Or handled by local/regional politicians? Certainly it wouldn't require the "heroic" inervention of someone at the level of the prime minster or the president? In other words, de Villepin is exploiting the situation for his own ends? Is this possible?

[Morgan Kane]

It is serious .....

1) attacks against the police ahave increased from 30 % thsi year. For the anniversary of the riots of last years, since two weeks, incidents are multiplicating.

2 ) In France even when there are town police, state police makes most of keeping order and it is state police who is attacked.

3) this year attacks against personns and not only police is incresasing.

4) That shows that the mediatic enforcement of public peace by sarkozy is not functionnal but he does not give a damn.

5 ) There are two problems. First the police cannot enter some districts .... Second policement are harassing yongs from these suburbs. A young from this disstrict can be justly afraid from police, even if he is clean. He risks public humiliation and harasseemnt. I know of a young man who must use a bus to go too high school. Police control without reason have made he was late to take the bus : result half a day lost ......

6 ) The problem is not yet a muslim problem. Non mulsims hare harrassed in the same way ..... But it is becoming a mulsim problem and that' s a door openend too integrists, Sarkozy ( minister of home ogffice is courting ) .

7) There was proximity police, admitted even in difficult districts. Sarkozy suppressed it to get the forces for his mediatic police. He went in Toulouse and insulted policement making contact work with youngs telling them they were not baby sitters. .. All mayors are regretting proximity police but in some districts, the situation is such that it would be suicide for policement to go and make contact work.

8) In France, public security is an electoral stake and Sarkozy who is on of the main candidate for next year preesidential election wages much. De Villepin, the prime minister and an ennemy even if of the same political party tries toundermine Sarkozy.

Excuse me for this long post ....

[Jerry Cornelius]

I just saw this from Reuters, which is a standard news service (not too prejudiced, I think). I assume this is being focused on as France approaches the elections. Who is the candidate who can best solve these problems and help the people in the suburbs?


French police the target in urban guerrilla war

By Jon Boyle Mon Nov 27, 11:29 AM ET


PARIS (Reuters) - Stoned, beaten and insulted, their vehicles torched by crowds of hostile youths, French police say they face an urban guerrilla war when they enter the run-down neighborhoods that ring the major cities.

"Our role is to guarantee the safety of people and property but the great difficulty today is that police are having problems ensuring their own safety," said Jerome Hanarte of the Alliance-Police Nationale union.

Bedside television interviews with officers hospitalized after beatings in "les banlieues," or suburbs, support statistics showing a 6.7 percent jump in violent crime in the 12 months to August.
Fourteen officers are hurt every day in the line of duty, unions estimate, and law and order is sure to feature prominently in next year's presidential election.

The head of the French crime statistics body told Reuters the rise in attacks on police was partly due to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's 2002 decision to order police back into tough areas, to disrupt the black economy that fuels crime.

Some residents complain the move spawned constant police harassment which has only exacerbated tensions with local youths, many of whom come from ethnic minorities.

"You can see discrimination in ID controls," complained Kader Latreche, 36, an Algerian with his own photo equipment repair shop in the La Courneuve suburb.

"Why is it always people from the Maghreb or black people who are being stopped and checked? If it happens over and over again, it gets to you. People are frustrated, that's obvious."

CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE

How much those frustrations are driving the violent reaction to police is hard to gauge but Nicolas Comte, general secretary of the Syndicat General de la Police (SGP), said officers now face guerrilla warfare in the suburbs.

"The simple presence of men in uniforms in some areas is no longer a provocation but a declaration of war in the minds of some louts," he told a recent police union rally.

The spike in violence has sharpened the political debate and the left is demanding a return to community policing, with more officers on the beat making contacts with local people.
Sarkozy, favorite to represent the mainstream right in next year's elections, says police are paid to detect crime, not play the social worker.

Dispirited officers complain they are caught in the middle.

"The latest insult I got was 'Sarko's suppo' (suppository) -- so I don't know if it's the police officer who is the target or our minister that's the cause of the problem," said a plain clothes officer in the tough Seine-Saint-Denis district.

Sarkozy is a hate figure for many suburban youths and his strong language about delinquents is blamed by many for fomenting last year's suburban riots in which some 8,000 vehicles were torched along with schools, creches and other public buildings.

Karine Guigon, a police officer and SGP union official in a suburb south of Paris, says the security forces have become society's nursemaids.

"We are there to apply the sticking plaster pretty much everywhere. But the follow-up work isn't done," she said.

Guigon joined the force 10 years ago, attracted by the contact with the public and the chance to make a difference on the street with wayward youngsters. In the intervening period, society at large has done little to improve matters.

"Ten years ago, when I worked in the education system, teachers were being told to educate youngsters because the parents couldn't manage to any more," Guigon said.

"Ten years later, I'm working in the police and we're being told to help youngsters because the education system and the parents aren't succeeding."

FALSE DEBATE
Guigon favors a return to the community policing approach abandoned by Sarkozy in 2002, but not all her colleagues agree.

"It's a false debate," said Hanarte, whose union is generally supportive of Sarkozy and wants judges to take a tougher stance against delinquents.

"Why put foot patrols in these districts if they will be systematically attacked by youngsters, who are repeatedly arrested and then systematically released by the justice system?

"Having police in these areas can only be a good idea if, beforehand ... police have arrested the delinquents in the suburbs. You have to start by that, restoring a certain calm."
Calm is a long way off.

The plain clothes officer in Seine-Saint-Denis said seven colleagues were attacked recently after chasing a driver who skipped a checkpoint. Their vehicle was torched and they narrowly escaped serious injury.

"The high number of officers hurt means that police themselves don't feel safe," he said.
"That's pretty serious, because if police don't feel safe, you can imagine what the ordinary citizen feels," added the officer who asked not to be identified.

To protect themselves, police often move in large groups -- a tactic youngsters say is heavy-handed and overly aggressive.

Comte says the threat to police is so great in some neighborhoods they should exercise their "right to withdraw." That means refusing to respond to emergency calls if they judge they cannot guarantee their own safety.

"Frankly, it's not worth getting your head kicked in for an end of year bonus of 200 euros ($256.)" said the plain clothes officer.


(Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich)


Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061127/lf_nm/france_police_dc

[Morgan Kane]

If this goes on i am going to look for asylum in some other country !

Seriously .. it is true there are problems, it is true that policement are attacked .....

But it is true that the situation is not such in every city or suburbs of France. There are thousands of districts and most are not affected .... or onlyy in no frequent occasions.

But it is true that community police has been withdrawn by Sarkozy from the neighborhoods and that many local authorities ( right and left wing ) ask for their return .....

It is true that Sarkozy is one of the main candidate for presidential election next year and has made of his successes on security on of his strong points, among others reasons to divert voters from ultra right . But statistics are not good ....

It is true that in some suburbs it will be difficult to install commuinity police ..... But it is true that a young friend of mine has to take the bus to go to school and has failed to be on time from seriopus police body search, only because he is from Maghreb .....

We are in a viscious circle, more thir is delinquancy, more the police is agressive .... and more it is attacked .... etc....

To break this scircle will be very difficult

Now, one remark : when a young commit his first breach of law..... if he is taken immediatly in charge by the judiciairy system, in 85 % of the cases, he will not commit other breach ....... but now, in bobigy, one of the most difficult court for youth, the treatment of cases can go on for 10 month and when a judge decide a judiciary measure, it takes months to be implemented .... In some court for youth, if the fact is not a car thief or something to this level, the judge has no time to treat the case !

[silverhand]

I can't claim to have read all the posts on this thread but I feel that religion should be kept out of schools & politics. If parents want their child to have a religious education then let them send their kids to the church, synagogue or mosque of their choice. At school they should have a sound secular education & be allowed to have their own views on religion/atheism.

[silverhand]

Whoops, did I forget to say that I thought France had got it right?

[Morgan Kane]

But, it is more and more difficult to preserve ......

When 13 years children don' t want to be presetn to a class of history or natural science because the teachings are against the dogma of their religion, when 8 years girls come with medicla certificate telling that they cannot go to gyms, and every body knows that the certificate is false but has been asked by the parents for religious reasons, when of the surroundings of mosques young poeple go to the stores and " cafés " to check if alcool is sold, specially during Ramadan.