Mark Steyn On French Intifada

Mark Steyn has an article up in the Chicago Sun-Times covering the French Intifada that is quickly becoming the European Intifada:

Steyn

Steyn points out that those rioting are technically French but:

it doesn't take much time in les banlieus of Paris to discover that the rioters do not think of their primary identity as ''French'': They're young men from North Africa growing ever more estranged from the broader community with each passing year and wedded ever more intensely to an assertive Muslim identity more implacable than anything you're likely to find in the Middle East.

Steyn also shoots holes in the argument that a neocon Bush strategy is at the root of all wrong in the Muslim world theory:

If you had millions of seething unassimilated Muslim youths in lawless suburbs ringing every major city, would you be so eager to send your troops into an Arab country fighting alongside the Americans? For half a decade, French Arabs have been carrying on a low-level intifada against synagogues, kosher butchers, Jewish schools, etc. The concern of the political class has been to prevent the spread of these attacks to targets of more, ah, general interest. They seem to have lost that battle. Unlike America's Europhiles, France's Arab street correctly identified Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war for what it was: a sign of weakness.

Is it simply a riot or is it in fact the start of something bigger? Well, ask those trying to stop the in violence what they think on that point:

''There's a civil war under way in Clichy-sous-Bois at the moment,'' said Michel Thooris of the gendarmes' trade union Action Police CFTC. ''We can no longer withstand this situation on our own. My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical or theoretical training for street fighting.''

Styen wraps it up with this prediction on whether the riots are a flash in the pan or the start of a bigger flame:

They're seizing their opportunities, testing their foe, probing his weak spots. If burning the 'burbs gets you more ''respect'' from Chirac, they'll burn 'em again, and again. In the current issue of City Journal, Theodore Dalrymple concludes a piece on British suicide bombers with this grim summation of the new Europe: ''The sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced by the nightmare of permanent conflict.'' Which sounds an awful lot like a new Dark Ages.

After seeing the start of the French Intifada, I have a whole new perspective on why the French were and still are reluctant to partner up in the “war on terrorism”.

My God, they are already a hostage in their own country……………………………………….