Monday, February 05, 2007

Report from France: "The Situation is Grim"

Soldier of Fortune in print and at www.sofmag.com features a two-part article by Dr. Martin Brass on the infitada in France. Sofmag requires subscription to access articles, but here are some excerpts from the February 2007 issue.

A French Intifada, or Will It Be Civil War?

Brass visited Paris again in 2006 in anticipation of the anniversary of the November 2005 riots, when for 20 days "thousands of mainly Muslim immigrants or children of immigrants had terrorized 300 banlieues (neighborhoods) across the country, burning cars, attacking police, and vandalizing... forcing the government to declare a state of emergency."

Thierry Pons, an instructor for John Farnam's Defense Training International, blamed much of the chaos on Islamic drug lords operating out of the banlieus. "Radical Islamics account for only a minority of the Moslem population, but perpetually unemployed men, unceasingly on the dole, are easy to incite. Bombings and assassinations keep reticent ones in line." Pons also points out that "French journalists... get special tax breaks... [and] this influences their coverage much more than ideology." By late 2006 the media was relentlessly hyping the approaching anniversary of the 2005 riots.

"What they have been doing... is criminal," former French infantry sergeant and self-defense trainer Fred Perrin told Brass. "They are inciting the youth stirring up all of the anger and frustration." Brass notes the reports were "inflammatory, but real." The pre-anniversary violence included ambush attacks on police and arson attacks on buses that left one woman severely burned. There were 4,200 violent incidents against police involving "youths" in 2006. "[T]hey're leading operations of an almost military sort to trap us," said police union official Loic Lecouplier. "These are acts of war."

"Our policemen have no real power," Perrin said. "They just observe. Sometimes they arrest one bad guy, but that's where it ends. The jails are full and it is not possible to send them back to their country: 99% of immigrant children have French citizenship. The French policeman... receives his orders from the politicians."

If 99% of the rioters are French citizens, this indeed implies a state of "civil war". But the politicians want to stop the violence with... dialogue.

"For years it was easy to stop riots, you shoot, kill for defense, use fires or other solutions, but that is more expensive and not politically correct... today they want to stop the problem without violence, by communication," said Perrrin.

French counterterrorism forces once had a very free hand, but that has changed. French police barely patrol in the banlieus anymore, which "would imply that the sources of intelligence have nearly dried up," Pons notes. He recalls an incident before the 2005 riots when "some political appointee in the ministry announced that tomorrow there was going to be a raid on various banlieus... to root out the drug traffickers. To no one's surprise, when the raid took place, there were barely any drugs to be found... Politics instead of security seems to be driving policy."

As Brass concludes, "Between the sorry media and the impotent police, and limp politicians, the situation is grim."

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