Riots in France...

[viper]

=D.C.L.I=TuRb0jUg3nD Wrote:BTW how many of you were aware of these huge, depressing ghettos on the outskirts of Paris before the riots? If my guess is correct, that most of you wew oblivious to them, the rioters have already won by simply letting us know.

Yes I was aware of them... 90% of all major cities have these areas.

The difference with the French culture is that they deny anything negative about their society exists and hence the problem they have at the moment. Its one of the two main things the British hate the French for ; they give the persona they are perfect when in reality this is far from the truth. The other thing of course being that we consider the French authorities to be nothing less than cowards.

The slightest thing can spark off riots though.

Here in Birmingham we had a load of riots a few weeks ago between the African and Asian communities in our so-called \"slum\" areas of Handsworth, Alum Rock and Lozelles (although granted no-where near as bad as those areas in Paris)... a rumour started going round that a 15 year old African girl had been raped by a gang of Asians in a shop. Rioting began after \"nothing\" was supposedly done by the police and this lasted for a few nights. Then it emerged the Police had been doing something all along the problem being that the Girl hadn\'t come forward and her identity was unknown so without her what were they supposed to do? Rioting died down after the entire community got together and condemned the rioting and stood behind the Police. It later turned out that one of two possibilities had happened...
a) the African girl was an illegal immigrant hence hadn\'t come forward (least likely).
b) Rival Asian shop keepers had started the rumour to sabotage the suspects shop and it got well out of hand...

Thing is; here in the UK we recognise the slum areas and councils/local government do what they can to help the communities rather than ignore them!!

Vips