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November 06, 2005

Is France Throwing in the Towel to the Rioters?

The French riots have gone into the tenth night:

Schools were torched and more than 600 cars set on fire in cities across France in a tenth night of rioting in poor suburban areas that went into the early hours of Sunday, the Interior Ministry said.

These quotes from French officials appear to indicate an absence of strategy for dealing with the rioters:

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin also summoned eight key ministers and a top Muslim official to his offices on Saturday as he sought to chart an end to the violence.

"We are trying to be firm and avoid any provocation," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said following the meeting.

Say what?  France is trying to avoid provoking the rioters who are burning hundreds of cars a night? They're already burning down as much of France as they can. Isn't it meaningless to talk about avoiding provoking them?

"Violence is not a solution," said Sarkozy, accused earlier of stoking passions by calling troublemakers "scum."

Another astonishing quote. Violence is not a solution? I suppose he means to condemn the violence of the rioters, while promising them that they will not be met with any violence in return from the French government. Needless to say, this only encourages the rioters.

"Once the crisis is over, everyone will have to understand there are a certain number of injustices in some neighborhoods."

Appease, appease, appease.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the government had called in reinforcements for police and fire services, adding in the Paris region alone, an extra 2,300 police officers and gendarmes have been dispatched. 

Great -- more police -- in othere words, more of a strategy that has already permitted the crisis to extend to a tenth night.

In Aulnay-sous-Bois, a rundown suburb of 80,000 inhabitants northeast of Paris, several thousand residents, some singing the national anthem, marched past burned out vehicles behind a "No To Violence, Yes To Dialogue" banner.

"It's a sign that the laws of the republic apply to everyone and that we will not give in to violence," said Mayor Gerard Gaudron, a member of the governing UMP party.

That sounds like blanket permission to the rioters to do as much violence as they want, with the promise that they will not be met with violence in return.

The French are in danger of losing their whole country with this strategy.

Update 7:50 am: The French government seems to be saying to the rioters, "You've made your point. Declare victory and go home." But the rioters aren't trying to make a point. They don't want the government to help them get out of poverty. What they want is to take over the country.

The Koran doesn't instruct people to have healthy, prosperous lives. It instructs them to kill non-Muslims wherever they are found, or to make non-Muslims into second-class citizens.(See this post for details). The strategy of the French government regarding the riots, is flawed by a profound misunderstanding of the goals of the rioters.