The momentum behind the rioting seems to have slowed down after the imposition of a curfew: "no one under the age of 16 is allowed out unaccompanied by an adult between 11 at night and 6 the next morning" (BBC News).

So I wonder how much of the rioting was a cry for help against injustices and poverty in France, and how much of it was just following the mob and running amok admist a period of seeming lawlessness

Bronwyn

After your waffling at length about the alleged political and social reasons for the riots, your third last para (about the "lack of gendered analysis") finally rings true.

YOUNG MALE THUGS, be they criminals or classed as "terrorists" appear to be at the root of most violence.

When they grow into older thugs, in a position of greater power, they're even a greater problem.

That this young thugism can be explained or legitimised as some sort of ethnic or religious "cry for help" is pathetic. Yes in some communities it is considered admirable to be young blood who can prove it.

The ethnic profiling of groups prone to violence, be they pack rapists, thugs outside court houses or would-be bombers, is justifiable due to the sheer volume of violent "hits" occurring amongst young men from that particular ethnic community (starting with L).

I do not want harsher anti terrorism laws but recognise that it is a reaction to the wrong groups being allowed in. Equally I don't want the level of street violence that France is experiencing.

Hence deterrents to illegal immigration, like detention centres, are not such a bad idea.

Oh such a long post…..
You say
If France is, as The Australian suggests, “paranoid” about the “infiltration” of foreign words and culture, Australia is paranoid about the “infiltration” of foreigners, full stop.

You forgot the ILLEGAL bit in, “infiltration” of foreigners, full stop. I do not see visa granted stopped. Full Stop? Have you? Full stop.

This is no doubt evidenced by the fact Australian Muslims are being vilified as never before – Vilified - To make vicious and defamatory statements about. Mmmm! Where are these vicious and defamatory statements being made? Please?

I stopped half way through. Sort of got boring this Australia, USA is evil post.

Sorry.

Oh by the way did you post something about how stupid it is the USA is being ridiculed for the attempting to give people freedom?

Or that the French, Germans and Russians provided the technology for the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and were principal armers of Iraq?

And lets not mention the oil for food scandal?

Maybe on a positive note maybe you can congratulate the US for reducing greenhouse emissions over the last 2 years without signing Kyoto. How many Other countries say that?

So the author asks where the women were in the tattered remains of the great gallic social model as displayed by violent idiots?

The Brussels Journal Blog at http://www.brusselsjournal.com/ seems to think that the Mayor of one French town knows exactly what has been happening to them...

Allons Enfants de la Jihad
From the desk of Paul Belien on Tue, 2005-11-08 15:01

Yesterday, Michel Pajon, the mayor of Noisy-le-Grand near Paris, asked for the French army to intervene and stop the violence which is taking over France. The mayor – a Socialist – went on French radio to say that what is happening in his country is absolutely appalling:

“Women have been made to stop on the streets of my town. They were dragged from their cars by their hair, they were practically stoned and their cars were set ablaze... The situation is absolutely dramatic and inacceptable. This is a real scandal. I sound the alarm bell in my town. If the state is incapable of defending us, we will have no choice but to defend ourselves. My town has a psychiatric hospital which has been attacked with molotov cocktails. This is beyond comprehension. I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. I do not ask for the resignation of the Interior Minister [Nicolas Sarkozy]. I want him to do his job. At the moment he is not doing his job.

Send in the army? I do not know, for a socialist to say that the army has to intervene is an inconceivable admission of defeat, but what I can say is that one cannot abandon the people like this. At some point we need to know whether this country still has a state.”

The two papers in question, according to Professor Winter, were correct when they ‘quite rightly’ condemned marginalisation of France’s Muslim minorities. Further on she mentions ‘.. the social, economic and cultural neglect that has disenfranchised Muslim….minorities…’.

Who does one believe when looking for the origins of the rioting?

Other writers claim that it was the Muslims themselves who insisted on not integrating. Agreements between the EU and the Arab League are referred to which have seen Muslims forming enclaves that the rioters and activists among them are now calling ‘occupied territories’ where they don’t want the police to go. The self-imposed segregation, it is claimed, has been in existence for 40 years. French-born Muslims show no allegiance to France. The self-imposed isolation is occurring all over Europe.

One noted Muslim in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur has even called for France to enter into an agreement to grant Muslims autonomy within the state.

Rather than blaming the situation on the French government, the media should perhaps be looking at what Theodore Dalrymple believes is a jihad in Europe, only just beginning

I would hesitate before suggesting that the french army intervene. This is the only guarnteed route to total moslem domination of a big chunk of the EEU (being France). Lets be serious, get the frech army to intervene without external support? They would surrender in a week! Finally, Frances anti-semetic pigeons have come home to roost (vive la Dreyfuss).

I bet the Germans would be quite willing to assist, they have definately had more success in operations in France. Not too sure how the population would react, although the majority didn't act all that affronted last time.

It is like the joke;
the Americans have raised their state of alert from yellow to amber.
the french have raised theirs from run to hide.

c'est la guerre