October 05, 2006

French Intafada or Criminal Gangs? To-may-to, To-mah-to

The UK paper the Telegraph reports that in France, per the police union, “Muslims” - not “youths,” as the European MSM usually euphemize - are breaking the law en masse:

Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims police union

Radical Muslims in France’s housing estates are waging an undeclared “intifada” against the police, with violent clashes injuring an average of 14 officers each day.

As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were “in a state of civil war” with Muslims in the most depressed “banlieue” estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin.

It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones.

The number of attacks has risen by a third in two years. Police representatives told the newspaper Le Figaro that the “taboo” of attacking officers on patrol has been broken.

Instead, officers – especially those patrolling in pairs or small groups – faced attacks as soon as they tried to arrest locals.

If the mass of people in a given locality who are refusing to obey the law - and who are attacking the police - is so great that the police cannot control it, then it appears reasonable to say that the situation has become a military matter; has in fact become, on the face of it, a civil war. The good news is that it’s a very small one, one that the government of France could easily win.

So now the debate, as the Telegraph frames it, is: well, is it an Islamofascist civil war, or is it just a case of criminal gang activity, among people who all just happen to be Islamic?

Michel Thoomis, secretary general of the Action Police trade union, says the former:

Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an “intifada” on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas.

He said yesterday: “We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their ‘comrades’ free when they are arrested.”

He added: “We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles.”

But the article quotes an alternative view:

The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also the leading centre-Right candidate for the presidency, has sent heavily equipped units into areas with orders to regain control from drug smuggling gangs and other organised crime rings.

...Gerard Demarcq, of the largest police unions, Alliance, dismissed talk of an “intifada” as representing the views of only a minority.

Mr Demarcq said that the increased attacks on officers were proof that the policy of “retaking territory” from criminal gangs was working.

What I say is, to-may-to, to-mah-to, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference there. This is a mass of people that is trying to overthrow French law and French government.  Just round them up and expel them.  Sure, some innocents will be accidentally expelled too. There’s tragedy in war and it’s unavoidable. As I posted previously, compassion for civilians who are at risk because of their physical proximity to the combatants, must be balanced against compassion for the civilians who are not at such risk, but who are the targets of those combatants. If France refuses to round up and expel those who want to destroy French government out of fear of harming “innocents”, then all of France will continue to suffer.

What’s the hold-up? Round up about a million radical Islamists and expel them so that they can find their way to places like Iran and Syria where they can live among people who believe as they believe. With a strategy like that, this whole situation in France would improve quickly.