November 1, 2005

Mini Civil War in French Suburb

Although it's captured scant media headlines, a mini civil war has been raging these past few days in the French suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, just northeast of Paris. The town is heavily populated by Muslim immigrants. And it appears that's exactly who's behind the ongoing violence. From AFP:

Tensions have been running high between police and gangs of youths in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of the capital, since the accidental death by electrocution last Thursday of two teenagers.

Many of the youths targeting police were angry at the deaths of two youths, aged 15 and 19, who were electrocuted after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer.

The local public prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the boys thought they were being chased by police, but authorities denied that was the case.

The launching of a tear gas grenade at a mosque late Sunday threatened to further escalate the troubles.

Police fired more tear gas overnight Monday to disperse around 100 youths involved in a stand-off with some 50 officers near the mosque.

It appears the violence is also spreading to neighboring French towns with large Muslim populations. Here's a good indicator why, also from the AFP article:

Of the 28,000-plus residents of Clichy-sous-Bois, 50 percent of the population is under 25 and one-quarter of the breadwinners in each household have no job, according to the town's website.

Like many working-class districts on the capital's northern rim, it has a heavy concentration of immigrants including first and second generation Muslims from France's former colonies.

It's been estimated that almost 10 percent of the French population is now Muslim, and that number growing at a rapid rate. Like elsewhere in Europe, Muslims in France have failed to integrate into the host society, living instead in impoverished slums where radical Islam is prevalent. In the wake of these latest riots, France's tough-talking Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has vowed to restore order to Paris's restless suburbs. The French, it should be noted, have done a solid job of deporting radical imams and cracking down on Islamic extremism in recent years. But as the events of these past few days show, these anti-terror measures may be a case of too little, too late.

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