Paris Riots

Has anybody heard from Virani in Paris? Virani - are you and Madame alright? In 'shout' you mentioned that cars were burned in your neighborhood, so I wanted to check in to see if you ohana were safe.

amiotiki

Looks like Virani posted his last message in creating sometime earlier today. Hope you and your family and any other members are safe.

Hey, thanks a lot, I'm fine.
The situation is really strange here, but there's nothing dangerous really. There's a big social and political problem in France right now, but I hope everything's gonna be fine.
The events of the last 12 nights are complicated and seemingly contradictory, but no more so than any other instance of collective violence: there is no real ideological underpinning, but the riots are more than just senseless violence; people are angry at a country that has provided poorly for them and put up barriers against their pursuit of happiness, so they burn their own neighborhoods.

And please, I've heard that some american channel are speaking about a religious problem in France, and riots linked to it, but NO, that is not at all a religious problem, that's just a social problem.

[ Edited by: virani 2005-11-10 16:54 ]

Pardon my ignorace. Virani, how much are you able to do of your normal life at this point in time? Are you and your wife able to work and do errands? If not, have you been advised to stay home or is it a decision that you made? Is the violence occurring at a particular time of day or is it random?
Just curious to get a perspective from a local. The new is only telling us the periphery here in the states.

Sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself at Hukilau. My apologies for my rudeness.

[ Edited by: I dream of tiki 2005-11-10 20:10 ]

1. The riots are mostly happening in the bad quarters in the suburbs of Paris, or of the main citys in France. As I'm living in Paris, I haven't even see anything burning, or fights with the police...

2. My life has not changed at all, I'm still taking the metro to go to work, I'm still going to bars after work to drink, if the TV didn't show me the riots, I wouldn't have think there would be some kind of troubles.

And even, a good friend of me, that works with me who lives in the bad parts, have seen cars burning, or stores burning, but he only had troubles 1 night to go back to his place.

I don't know what they're telling you, but really, no ones dead yet, I'm not scared (yet), but we'll see how it will go. Don't believe everything the media tells you.

Still, I think it's a bad thing and (sorry Hanford, I know we don't have to talk politics), it will probably be a bad thing for the next political election, as lots of people are scared of the immigrants (mostly north african), LePen (the racist bastard) will get more votes due to those young idiots (the riots are being made by really young guys, like under 18).

Anyway, I'm glad I can learn you something, and are you sure we didn't met at Hukilau ? I think I remember talking a few minutes with you ??

Quote: "I don't know what they're telling you, but really, no ones dead yet"

I thought one person was beaten to death while trying to stop a fire?

if you want real info on the riots, I recommand you to check my friend's Sean's blog. He lives in Paris as well and his american...

http://thehumanprovince.blogspot.com

Bonjour Virani,
Merci beaucoup pour l'information! It's good to get your perspective on what's been going on in Paris. The press here has been very alarmist - at least until today when they started telling us that the riots are tapering off due to "tough" government imposed curfews and such.

I'm relieved to hear that life is pretty much normal for you.

Warm regards,

amiotiki

It sounds all too familiar to me, Virani, having lived through the '77 NYC Blackout & the '92 LA Riots. Whatever reasons there might have been to explain why things got started, it quickly becomes about violence for violence's sake, and the perpetrators always seem to carry it out in their own neighborhoods (the area they're most familiar with).

For more historical background on the involvement between France and North Africa, here's a pretty good timeline from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
(Look under Key Events)
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/10/nfe/ht10nfe.htm

And continued here:
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/11/nfe/ht11nfe.htm

[ Edited by: vintagegirl 2005-11-11 21:50 ]

We had similar riots down here in Australia too, not quite as bad, but required riot cops out every night. Same story, the people who in poor socio-economic positions. Slums would be the politically incorrect term. Started out with a few people and grew. When in that situation, the "mob" mentality takes over.

Cops who are the ones workin with the people on the streets recognised people who were making good progess in outreach programmes and the like. They just get sucked in by the action. When you are in a mob, you feel like you have power, and the media gives you attention. It isnt constructive, but the powerless feel empowered for a while, because they are getting attention.

Like a kid who gets no attention, misbehaving so mum will pay attention. Same deal, but obviously a bit more complicated.

Its not a race or a religion issue. But the people in the lower soco-economic areas tend to come from the minority races/religion, so it is related.

Everyone laughs at me because I am different. I laugh at everyone else because they are all the same.

[ Edited by: hewey 2005-11-11 22:39 ]

Hi Virani,

How is the situation where you are now? I've been hearing the demonstrations are actually escalating within the Paris city limits, and the metro has been partially shut down. Are you and your wife okay? Are you able to get to work?

See, the thing is...
People are freaking out knowing that virani and I will soon be playing uke together.
There aren't enough venues or tickets for people and they're panicking a bit.

We'll play our fingers raw for the good of the people, though.
Because we're all about the aloha.

See you soon, braddah.

CNN just said that the students are pissed off because the government isn't letting them "have their cake and eat it too". (Doe! That's England stupid)
Glad to hear your doin well Virani.

They have Fox News on here at work, and according to them, the reason the riot police are standing nearby and not attacking and shutting this down is because the French government is confused and poorly led. Yeah, that's it. A real government would be pounding the citizens into pulp.

My daughter and sister just got back from Paris last week and saw some barracades here and there, but nothing really.

On 2006-03-31 11:46, Swanky wrote:
They have Fox News on here at work, and according to them, the reason the riot police are standing nearby and not attacking and shutting this down is because the French government is confused and poorly led. Yeah, that's it. A real government would be pounding the citizens into pulp.

I don't want to get into issues of politics which I know is taboo on TC per the posting rules (The first rule of tiki central is you don't talk about tiki central!, so I won't discuss my personal feelings about this issue...

But what I heard is that the French government is trying to change the current state of the employment law to remove protections for workers who are 26 and under if they have not been employed by a company for more than two years. From what I understand, a French company cannot just fire someone for no reason (unlike what most U.S. companies can do). The reason given by the government for doing this is to encourage employers to hire young people because they believe that many employers do not want to take the risk of hiring a young person if they would be stuck with that person as an employee and it would be hard to fire them. Apprently the unemployment rate for French persons of that age is pretty high compared to other countries, including the U.S. and Europe. Opponents believe that if this law was passed, an employer would then be able to just hire a person, then wait almost two years, and then fire that person without having a reason, and without giving that person benefits. Other people have objected saying that if this law is changed, it should be changed for everyone, not just for people under 26.

Here's a nice little synopsis (IMHO) of the forces at play as I understand them:

http://econblog.aplia.com/2006/01/youth-unemployment-in-france.html

I'm not familar with this blog, I just googled it. The info fits with what I've been reading in online newspaper articles (didn't save any links). It notes that "youth" unemployment in France is currently at about 23%(!!!) and (this is important) even higher among immigrant populations. I don't know their definition of "youth" but I'm guessing "under 30" or "under 25."

The intent of the law is, theoretically at least, to make employers less apprehensive in hiring "youths." I think (purely speculation on my part) that a large part of the intent behind this change in law is to make employers less reluctant to hire the young people of the immigrant communities from Algeria and Morocco etc and thus promote better assimilation of these young people into French society.

The rioting gangs that burned cars and made CNN last fall were primarily composed of youths from these immigrant suburbs. I think the term "disenfranchised" would fit them to a "T". Apparently, many of these same "gangs" are actually attacking and molesting the student demonstrators:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=684402

I personally doubt that the attacks by gangs on student demonstrators is due to idealogical differences re: the proposed changes in law; which would actually make some level of sense. Its more likely just an instance of exploiting the chaos to engage in hooliganism and criminal behavior.

My 2 non-political cents.

On 2006-03-31 11:46, Swanky wrote:
They have Fox News on here at work, and according to them, the reason the riot police are standing nearby and not attacking and shutting this down is because the French government is confused and poorly led. Yeah, that's it. A real government would be pounding the citizens into pulp.

Consider the source...

OK. There's nothing dangerous or anything here in Paris. There is some riots, but just like every month or so, we're used to it. The thing is, yes, a big majority of french think this new law is really bad for the youth, so there're unhappy toward the first minister (lots of his government think the same as the unhappy people). So, as there is big riots, there is trouble makers...who just wants to throw some rocks to the police...but that's a really small amount of people. About the metro or the rest of my life in Paris, nothing as changed, they were just a day of 1/2 the transportation working but that's over now.
Once again, don't beleive everything they can tell you.
French are used to those situations, we don't usually like to get screwed by our government.