France Losing Control Of Rioters

The ninth night of rioting in France -- not just Paris now, but France -- is winding down as I write, and that's a good thing, because it was a bad night. Here's how the violence expanded on night nine:

• It got personal. Rioters set fire to a woman when she got off a bus that had been stoped by a firey roadblock. The woman, in her 50s and on cruches, was severely burned.
  
• They became armed. Guns apparently only were fired at inanimate objects Friday night ... but will that last?
• The tempo of violence increased, with 500 vehicles (one-third of them outside Paris) and several warehouses burned.
• Being Muslims, they finally got around to doing what Muslims do: they burned a synagogue, in Pierrefitte, northwest of Paris.
• The violence continued to spread, with incidents at Suresnes and Aubervilliers, on the northern edge of Paris; and in Lille, Toulouse, Rouen, Nice and Marseille.
• Organization of the rioters increased, with gangs communicating on their tactics and police tactics via cell phones and text messages.

On the positive side, the Muslim community began to take action, with one mosque raising a group of youths to counter the demonstrations.

That small positive could be lost in a heartbeat if police kill one of the rioters, and with the riots still growing, the chance of that happening increases every night.

Oh, there was also a second night of rioting in Denmark. Read about the first night here, and the second here.