Blogging the Paris Riots

Hey folks....I'm a little bit (okay, a few days) behind the the news cycle, but I still wanted to talk about the rioting in France.

I like to think that it allows me to be a bit more contemplative, less reactionary.

Things seem to have calmed down a bit (at least in terms of the number of cars torched) and maybe people are chilling for Armistice Day; however, CNN notes that Paris police are wary of planned disturbances on Saturday.

On Wednesday, Wired.com reported
(in a widely-picked up story) that French authorities shut down several
blogs that they claimed were inciting violence, which was worrying to
many French political bloggers.

Cops are also apparently worried about rioters planning via SMS text-messaging, which I guess gives the term flash mob a new meaning.

Reacting to the Wired story was a Slashdot post on Thursday. Going through the comments, even at moderation level 3, gave me a headache.

Like most things, the situation in France is tres
complicated; besides the issues of race, poverty, immigration policy,
ghettoization and cultural assimilation (or the lack of it), we've
got  fears of exploitation by radical Islamists, France's long and
sordid colonial history and their post-World War II rebuilding program.

Throw
in a bunch of "I told you so's", general antipathy for France and the
French political system in certain circles and a whole bunch of other
factors...well, like many things, if the answers were easy, the
problems would be fixed by now.

For background reading, I'm finding the Wikipedia articles on 2005 Civil Unrest in France and Social Situation in the French Suburbs very informative (yay, wikis), though I'll note that the latter wears a content warning right now, saying that the neutrality of the article is disputed:

Over at Publius Pundit (link via Instapundit), there's a long but good look at some of the reactions in the European press, as well as a look at the question whether this is an opening for radical Islamists.

Speaking of reactions from the foreign press, I was over at Watching America,
which is a great site that rounds up and translates articles from news
outlets around the world, so Americans (pronounced "murkins") can see
how foreigners (or at least the foreign press) sees us.

Related to the riots, they've got a few stories from French paper, Le Figaro (French-language), written by their Washington correspondent. One is a look at urban policy after the LA Riots & in NYC; the other asks whether American methods can work in France.



Both articles are pretty interesting, especially in seeing what evidence and conclusions an "outsider" draws about America.

Anyway, that's it for now. Talk to you later. -- Joe