The triumphant conclusion of the crybaby riots has opened up the French riot calendar for the increasingly popular "youths" riots organized by unidentified forces in the banlieues.

NEW RIOTS IN PARIS TROUBLE ZONE

May 30, 2006 (Guardian) - Around 100 youths fought with police and torched cars and rubbish bins in a Paris suburb last night, close to the site of last November's Clichy-Sous-Bois riots.

French media reported that seven police were injured and six youths arrested in the clashes in Montfermeil, in the northern Seine-Saint-Denis region.

POLICE INJURED AS VIOLENCE FLARES IN SUBURBS OF PARIS

May 31, 2006 (Telegraph) - At least 100 youths, many brandishing baseball bats, clashed with police in a new outbreak of violence in the same Parisian suburbs in which nationwide rioting started last autumn. The disturbances, which were described as "violent and intense" and left several policemen injured, extended from late on Monday night into the early hours yesterday.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets after coming under attack, while Xavier Lemoine, the centre-Right mayor of Montfermeil, one of two affected suburbs, was left fearing for the lives of his wife and seven children after a stone-throwing mob gathered outside his home.

Mr Lemoine became a hate figure when he introduced a tough new anti-delinquency law banning people aged 15 to 18 from congregating in groups of more than three in the centre of the town. The ban was suspended after a legal challenge, but the mayor caused further anger by providing a witness statement that enabled police to arrest a young man accused of assaulting a bus driver.

After the incidents at the mayor's residence, youths attacked the Montfermeil town hall, shattering its glass facade with missiles. Petrol bombs were thrown, although they failed to ignite, and four cars and a large number of rubbish bins were set on fire. Riot police later confronted gangs of masked youths on a nearby estate and made three arrests. Trouble also broke out in the neighbouring suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois...

First reports suggested that Monday's trouble flared after the arrest of the suspect implicated by the mayor in the bus driver's assault. A later theory linked it to the arrest of a woman who became agitated when her home was raided following the detention of her son for burglary.

But a police union accused the mayor of exposing officers to risk of injury as a consequence of his "untimely" political decisions and the leader of France's opposition socialist party, François Hollande, claimed the mayor had created an "instrument for violence" by stigmatising young people.

Ah, the mysterious stigmatized "young people" of France. The only things that the media has been able to establish with certainty about these rioting "young people" are that they are "young" and that they are "people". Everything else, well, everything else is cruel stigmata.

M. Hollande suggests that it is M. Lemoine who is responsible for the actions of the stigmatized "young people" because M. Lemoine promulgated measures to thwart the very actions that have stigmatized these "young people". Perhaps instead of merely scoring points off M. Lemoine, were M. Hollande to offer a scoreable PS program of practical reforms, we might better judge his standing as a social critic. But, no, France must first elect M. Hollande -- or someone from his party -- to find out what, if anything, the Parti Socilaiste has up its sleeve.

NIGHT TWO OF TROUBLE: PARIS YOUTHS STONE POLICE STATION

MONTFERMEIL, France May 31, 2006 (AFP) - Street violence opposing local gangs and police continued late Tuesday and early Wednesday in both towns [scil., Montfermeil and Clichy-sous-Bois], as youths attacked a police station, set ablaze a dozen cars and rained stones down on public buildings.

Four police officers were lightly wounded while protecting the Montfermeil police station from stoning by a gang of around 30 youths. Four other officers, visibly rattled, managed to get out of their car, in front of the Bosquets public housing estate on the border of the two towns, after youths set it on fire, AFP witnessed.

Security has been scaled up across the area — although regional authorities have denied the events were linked to the November unrest.

No, no, no. No linkage. Day to day the émeutiers take to the streets with wholly new motivations. It is never the same complaint. Everyday brings some new reason -- completely unrelated to yesterday's reason -- to set France to flame. Such is the expansive inventiveness of the French émeutier.

PARIS SUBURBS SEEMINGLY BACK TO SLOW SIMMER

PARIS June 1, 2006 (AFP) - Riot police had Thursday brought two unruly Paris suburbs back under control after an outbreak of street violence there had raised fears of a repeat of last November's nationwide riots.

Young people from local housing estates told AFP that the trouble began Monday after police used tear gas on a woman whose son had been arrested in connection with a robbery. The police union Alliance said the woman had "rebelled" [?] when officers came to search her son's home and that, feeling threatened as a group of youths started climbing the stairs, they had "used tear gas to escape."

Everything is back to acceptable French levels of violence, discontent, and hopelessness. Circulez, rien à voir ici.

* Absolutely no Muslims, Maghrébins, or Arabs sighted during the writing of this report.

PFFT (What is this?): La France normale 4 | Rayonnement français 0

Still there ?

Still proud of your army ....?

There is no weapon of mass detruction, but we found finally something : weapons of mass murder , hold by GI.

What a shame...

MY LAI wasn't enough ? U need still some blood ?

US has become a NAZI country.

yes, it is a shame if true. But it is something that we as Americans will investigate, condemn if found to be true, and hold up for the world to see as something that should have never been.

We will not look for scapegoats, we will not bury what happened, we will not wait 50 years to acknowledge what happened, all of which France has done countless times in the past.

If what is alleged actually happened, I am ashamed. I understand that we are held to a higher standard, and that events like this and far worse happen daily around the world, without a mention in the French press. I understand that this incident may very well cause huge protests against Americans in the streets of Paris while the Eiffel Tower is bathed in red light in the honor of a Chinese official who has violated more human rights than we could ever be accused of.

But I understand that pointing the finger at far worse behavior in an attempt to absolve one's self from guilt is a French proclivity that I will not imbibe in. If what is accused is true it is a crime against humanity and, believe me, the punishment will be just.

while the Eiffel Tower is bathed in red light in the honor of a Chinese official who has violated more human rights than we could ever be accused of.

Excuse me but wasn't the Chinese prime minister in Washington recently? Please. The US borrows heavily from those human rights violators, as you describe. Where there is money to be made, suddenly the US (as well as France) is not keen on reminding China of its record.

yes, he was.

However, we did not bathe the Washington Monument in red light. If we did, there would have been outrage amongst the populace.

We did not give him the status and reception that is accorded European leaders. France did.

He was not allowed to give a speech to our Senators. He addressed the French version when he visited France.

We did not just a few weeks before have a million + person march against France for their human rights abuses and then spread our arms wide open for him. France, in all her hypocrisy, staged a huge anti-American protest then pulled out all the stops for Hu.

No one in France interrupted Hu's speech or press conference with heckles calling for an end to human rights abuse in China. In the U.S., they did.

If you can't see the difference, my friend, you are blind.

The hypocrisy in France is truly amazing.

Jack,

May your country never ever withdraw from Iraq, as your invasion has been a blessing in disguise for us all, world wide Anti-Americans as this is an everlasting source of inspiration to kindly bash you out every time and again, we don't even have to bring up your political, social domestic issues, we just have enough field days, with just Iraq for at least a couple of decades to come. It's just a shame your president can't run for an extra 4 years !

(this was light-hearted of course)

PS. Regarding the Haditha massacre, I predict this will be another whitewash from your administration / military.

zoomerx said: "Where there is money to be made, suddenly the US (as well as France) is not keen on reminding China of its record."

Yes, we may borrow from China, but it is mostly France who is looking to make a profit from China. Try to explain why France wants to lift embargoes against selling arms to China?

The U.S. is adamantly against it and could profit far more greatly since we could sell them tomahawk missiles to your bows and arrows?

We do not look the other way at their abuses, it is one of the reasons we wish to keep the embargo.

I'm no right wing idealogue, I may have more in common with your thinking than you realize, if you are a frenchman. But what I cannot countenance is a hypocritical snivelling little frenchman complaining about human rights abuses committed by Americans when they and their allies sit silently by while abuses orders of magnitude greater than ours are perpetrated and they turn their backs.

Good day to you.

fff,

I know almost all of France becomes gleeful when America has hit a setback. It's why I no longer consider France an ally. What ally would wish misery on their friends? I, myself, look ruefully to the day that France falls to the demopathy that is being perpetrated by Muslims in that country, and I hope it does not come to pass. But if it does, I will never say "I told you so".

Yes, we may borrow from China

Yes you do. You borrow and invest from one of the most repressive regime on earth, and massively profit from their cheap labor at the expense of American workers. Don't look at France solely to accuse you of double-standards.

but it is mostly France who is looking to make a profit from China.

Oh please.

There's plenty of evidence the US is looking for its share as well. And guess who's taking the lion's share in the Three Gorges River? Among the US companies involved are none others than the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Try to explain why France wants to lift embargoes against selling arms to China?

Only France? The UK supports it too.

But what I cannot countenance is a hypocritical snivelling little frenchman complaining about human rights abuses committed by Americans

I'd worry more about Al-Jazeera's using this "scoop" throughout the Middle East than what some "little Frenchman" has to say about this matter. And besides, I do not agree with our French (?)correspondent equating these Marines - even if found guilty - with Nazis.

It's why I no longer consider France an ally. What ally would wish misery on their friends? I, myself, look ruefully to the day that France falls to the demopathy that is being perpetrated by Muslims in that country, and I hope it does not come to pass.

Well, that "non-ally" has been present in Afghanistan from week-one, opened its bases in Africa to US forces, air-raided the Taliban it the early phases of the war (the only non-US power to do so), trains and pays for Afghan officers and lost two more of its soldiers while fighting the Taliban last week (here'something for you to cheer for). That non-ally is also a major partner in the war against terrorism intelligence (not juicy enough to make the news, but there's more behind-the-scenes that FoxNews leads you to beleive), and has been working very hard in accord with the US in preventing some axis-of-evil nation who is actually eying for a nucelar weapon.

The U.S. is adamantly against it and could profit far more greatly since we could sell them tomahawk missiles to your bows and arrows?

A lot of nations are buying those "bows and arrows", putting France in 3rd place in the market of Death. Of course we all know who's number one and how the US, as usual, is innocent of any wrong-doing.

Jack,

Well, you have met almost all our resident franchouilles, representatives of superior French deep-think and the enlighted French moral order.

Marc Levis doesn't know much about history, but he knows what he likes. And he likes American comparisons to Nazism. And though he decries "American Nazism", he can be found here as an apologist for Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds. Elsewhwere he was caught trying to crash this site (for which he apologized).

M. FFF, who, in his capacity as a stickler for the truth, predicts "another" [sic] American whitewash imminent, was recently seen here making up facts more to his liking about the release of the French hostage Bernard Planche. Of course, M. FFF, speaking as France's champion, probably knows a thing or two about "whitewash".

You have yet to meet M. Anti-Brits/Anti-Yanks. He is a crank with a predilection for the exclamation key. Like M. Levis he makes no distinction between individual actions and government policy -- well, excepting France, where the government policy and actions in, say, Côte d'Ivoire are just the individual actions of one or two bad eggs. His signature sign-off is: "Good luck to (?) your country in Irak." Like M. FFF, he does not conceal his delight at American deaths and hardships in Iraq.

These French correspondents then offer France, which they presume to represent, as the model of tolerance and compassion to emulate.

M. Zmx is not a crank, but neither is he a careful reader or a first-water debater. For example, he here facilely equates America making money in Chinese commercial development with France making money in arms trade to China. No difference there. This is all fine and good for M. Zmx, because France will not be called on to defend democracy in the Pacific. Whenever his facts are wrong, whenever his arguments are defective, he informs us this is "irony". On a good day M. Zmx may give you a good argument, which is more than can be said for Messrs. AB/AY, Levis, FFF on any day.

Welcome to Pave,
DGB

If zoomerx qualifies as the most articulate and learned on this site from France, your job, Mr. Bennet, should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

According to zoomerx's logic, doing business with tyrants is profiteering and placing an embargo on business with a tyrant is killing the children of that country. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't, so to speak.

Of course, this logic should only be applied to the U.S., since France can sell them all weapons and take bribes from these same tyrants and be beyond reproach, as long as some other country is doing the same.

And yes, zoomer, your help in Afghanistan is much appreciated, but you're government and citizenry have all but erased the help your brave soldiers have given by acting like total asses. The net effect is detrimental to our efforts.

Tout Va Très Bien

Indeed, Damian. I guess that would depend where you choose to look.