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The whole world is witnessing an attempt by Muslims in France to take over large tracts of the country. From Amir Taheri, editor of the French quarterly "Politique internationale," in the New York Post:
How did it all start? The accepted account is that sometime last week, a group of young boys in Clichy engaged in one of their favorite sports: stealing parts of parked cars.
Normally, nothing dramatic would have happened, as the police have not been present in that suburb for years.
The problem came when one of the inhabitants, a female busybody, telephoned the police and reported the thieving spree taking place just opposite her building. The police were thus obliged to do something — which meant entering a city that, as noted, had been a no-go area for them.
Once the police arrived on the scene, the youths — who had been reigning over Clichy pretty unmolested for years — got really angry. A brief chase took place in the street, and two of the youths, who were not actually chased by the police, sought refuge in a cordoned-off area housing a power pylon. Both were electrocuted.
Once news of their deaths was out, Clichy was all up in arms.
With cries of "God is great," bands of youths armed with whatever they could get hold of went on a rampage and forced the police to flee.
The French authorities could not allow a band of youths to expel the police from French territory. So they hit back — sending in Special Forces, known as the CRS, with armored cars and tough rules of engagement.
Within hours, the original cause of the incidents was forgotten and the issue jelled around a demand by the representatives of the rioters that the French police leave the "occupied territories." By midweek, the riots had spread to three of the provinces neighboring Paris, with a population of 5.5 million.
But who lives in the affected areas? In Clichy itself, more than 80 percent of the inhabitants are Muslim immigrants or their children, mostly from Arab and black Africa. In other affected towns, the Muslim immigrant community accounts for 30 percent to 60 percent of the population
...Some are even calling for the areas where Muslims form a majority of the population to be reorganized on the basis of the "millet" system of the Ottoman Empire: Each religious community (millet) would enjoy the right to organize its social, cultural and educational life in accordance with its religious beliefs.
In parts of France, a de facto millet system is already in place. In these areas, all women are obliged to wear the standardized Islamist "hijab" while most men grow their beards to the length prescribed by the sheiks.
The radicals have managed to chase away French shopkeepers selling alcohol and pork products, forced "places of sin," such as dancing halls, cinemas and theaters, to close down, and seized control of much of the local administration.
A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out.
"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheiks, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities.
That's all they demand -- to be left alone. Left alone by the French government, so as to rule those parts of France as a separate territory, beyond control of the French government.
That's the deal. The Muslims want to take over the areas of France in which they live. For 30 years they've refused to assimilate because their goal was to impose Islam, rather than to integrate with the non-Muslim population. In following this path the Muslim population has just been doing what it says to do in the Koran and what Muslims have been doing for 1300 years.
Were the Muslims to succeed in taking over those parts of France, there can be little doubt that they would soon be launching attacks on the rest of the country.
The greatest strength the Muslim extremists had in today's world was the view by many in Western cultures that they could be reasoned with and accomodated. Now that they're threatening France's existence, that cover may be blown -- forfeiting that key strength.
France would be well-advised to expel large numbers of these extremists.