Can France Focus On Riots' Cause?

As the French riots enter into their second week, the real issues behind them are starting to surface, selectively.

I scanned an Agence France Presse dispatch on the Saturday riots, trying to remember my high school French and looking for a mention the Muslim youths were rioting. All I found was in the very last paragraph in the lengthy article:

Le président français Jacques Chirac, dont le silence étonne certains députés de sa propre majorité, a reçu une offre d'"aide" de la part du dirigeant libyen Mouammar Kadhafi, selon l'agence officielle libyenne Jana.

The French/English blog Non Pasaran! wrote of a public affairs show ("Freeze Frame" in English) that dared to point a finger at the French media as an instigator of the Muslim community's anger against Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. This is a bit long, but worth reading:

Today’s subject was, not surprisingly, the recent coverage of the riots.

It appears that Nicolas Sarkozy was deliberately demonized in the TV reports of him using his strong language earlier in the week. In fact, there was footage available showing Sarkozy using the word “racaille” (riff-raff) while speaking to an inhabitant of Clichy-sous-Bois who herself had just used the word while expressing how fed up she was with local crime.

Sarko answered her using her own words. In politics, that’s a way of communicating empathy. Her words were edited out and never shown in the insuing days. His weren’t. [Freeze Frame] showed the whole exchange today.

Mr. Sarkozy was filmed quietly and calmly speaking to youths from Clichy who were apparently very deferential toward him (calling him Monsieur), eager to talk to him and seemed impressed that he was willing to leave himself unprotected by bodyguards in order to spend some time with them. In a what amounts to a ghetto that’s a sincere display of trust.

That footage didn’t make the news programs simply because the Provisional wing of the CGT got in the way of honest journalism. It didn’t suit their political agenda, and through its’ heavy ideological editing fanned the flames you might see in your nearest car park or bus depot. Never mind the possible tensions that the press can inflame by reporting too much, worry about what harm is caused by consciously reporting too little.

Meanwhile, the US media is beginning to poke right at the wound -- with a liberal, victim-praising voice, but poking nonetheless. Molly Moore, writing in WaPo, says it's all about a fight for recognition by a suffering population without a voice.

The story ends with a magnicent quote from a man who knows many of the young rioters:

"We don't have the American dream here. We don't even have the French dream here."

The article lays blame for the riots on poverty, neglect by the French government, and anger at Sarkozy's call for a "war without mercy" against the criminals and rioters in Paris' North African/Muslim slums.

The rioters Moore spoke to said the violence isn't about religion:

Abdel, echoing the anger of many of the youths, said he resented the French government's efforts to thrust Muslim leaders into the role of mediators between the police and the violent demonstrators.

"This has nothing to do with religion," he said. "But non-Muslims are afraid of people like me with a beard. I look suspicious to them. Discrimination is all around us. We live it every day. It's become a habit. It's in the air."

These kids had no control over Osama bin Laden, but they have to live with the consequences. Were they cheered or repelled by 9/11? We don't know. Even if it is all politics, two things are true.

First, because they've injured people and destroyed property, they deserve whatever harsh response they get.

And they've opened new doors to the crazy Imams and al Qaeda recruiters, who already have been working these neighborhoods. For the rioters, it may be all about he economy -- but the jihadists will find the kids to whom it's all amout the need to take out the evil West.

What's not known is whether France will question its socialistic safety net society in light of the knowledge that it doesn't cover all ... and that it will cost a pretty Franc to equally cover these Muslims they really don't like much, despite their superior liberal airs.