Here's Mark Steyn excellent observation about the French "youth" (Which are really young Muslims from Northern Africa who have immigrated or are second generation immigrants) that are rioting in the streets of Paris. Take a look:
Battles are very straightforward: Side A wins, Side B loses. But the French government is way beyond anything so clarifying. Today, a fearless Muslim advance has penetrated far deeper into Europe than Abd al-Rahman. They're in Brussels, where Belgian police officers are advised not to be seen drinking coffee in public during Ramadan, and in Malmo, where Swedish ambulance drivers will not go without police escort. It's way too late to rerun the Battle of Poitiers. In the no-go suburbs, even before these current riots, 9,000 police cars had been stoned by ''French youths'' since the beginning of the year; some three dozen cars are set alight even on a quiet night. ''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.''I guess this is what happens when a nation has a lax or absent assimilation policy. It's all good to cling to your cultural and religious heritage but since they're citizens of France they should abide by all of the laws that others citizens, speak a common language and have some affection for being French and not a North African Frenchman, Muslim Frenchman or so other identity group Frenchman. No matter what the academics and folks like President Chirac say, the riots within France will not go away until you confront these groups and set some boundaries that these unassimilated immigrants must abide by.
What to do? In Paris, while ''youths'' fired on the gendarmerie, burned down a gym and disrupted commuter trains, the French Cabinet split in two, as the ''minister for social cohesion'' (a Cabinet position I hope America never requires) and other colleagues distance themselves from the interior minister, the tough-talking Nicolas Sarkozy who dismissed the rioters as ''scum.'' President Chirac seems to have come down on the side of those who feel the scum's grievances need to be addressed. He called for ''a spirit of dialogue and respect.'' As is the way with the political class, they seem to see the riots as an excellent opportunity to scuttle Sarkozy's presidential ambitions rather than as a call to save the Republic.
A few years back I was criticized for a throwaway observation to the effect that ''I find it easier to be optimistic about the futures of Iraq and Pakistan than, say, Holland or Denmark." But this is why. In defiance of traditional immigration patterns, these young men are less assimilated than their grandparents. French cynics like the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, have spent the last two years scoffing at the Bush Doctrine: Why, everyone knows Islam and democracy are incompatible. If so, that's less a problem for Iraq or Afghanistan than for France and Belgium.
If Chirac isn't exactly Charles Martel, the rioters aren't doing a bad impression of the Muslim armies of 13 centuries ago: 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.
Now it's true that the French government has allowed some of this to fester by creating a welfare state that pretty much supports anyone who is a citizen of France. This love affair with the welfare state has also started to sap the French poketbook because a considerable amount of he natural born French are getting older and aren't having enough children to continue to feed the welfare monster so they have to open up the borders to available workers which in France's case come from Northern Africa. So with a desire to prop up the sinking workforce with a mass influx of immigrants the government tends to look the other way when it comes to assimilating these people into French society. Another stain on France can be traced to their stifling socialistic workrules that gives everyone seven weeks vacation, make it illegal for people to work over 35 hours as well as it's virtually impossible to fire anyone who works in France, so even if the immigrant workforce moves out of the menial jobs they but into the stringent work-laws that keep the out of the game. The only way to stop this madness is to liberalize the French economy by knocking down the socialistic barricades within France thus creating a more dynamic economy that has a more competitive workforce. This would help the unemployment numbers and eliminate any barrier that the immigrants claim the French are holding against them.
Yet another way to nip this problem in the bud, is for the French government to step in and stop the rioting via the French police forces or even the military. Now I'm not advocating a French version of Tiananmen Square or Watts and Detroit in the 60's but there needs to be some show of force much like New York City did in the mid-90's under Rudy. When cops are so afraid to enter certain areas of the city because the rioters are too rough and dangerous then the French have some real problems. If you snuff out this rioting in its infancy you wouldn't have all the problems of fire-bombed stores, homes, cars and Lord knows what else.
So the solution to the stoppage and prevention of such rioting is for France is threefold. First, the French should have a show of force to shut off the chaos that is circulating in these suburbs of France. Second, the French have a strong focus on assimilating the immigrants who move to France. (They should abide by the saying of "When in Rome.") Third, they have got to rethink the current construct of the French welfare state and it's socialistic workforce rules. Until they do this expect more of the same. Unfortunately, this is France and the only thing it's leaders have offered up is silly things like "positive discrimination" (or as we call affirmative action) and offering up voting rights to non-French citizens. If France wants to cut the rioting off at the pass then they've got to try the suggestions above rather than just turning over on your back an offering the rioters everything they clamored for. It's a disservice to France and Europe as well as to the immigrants in France. I'd agree that these are trying times for Western Civilization, I just hope the nations of the West see the same.
Update:
Check out the piece by Theodore Dalrymple that Steyn was talking about. Also see this piece as well.
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