Sensitive Urban Areas: Has France Become a Narco State?

http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2576

From the desk of Paul Belien

Last http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2510 suburb of Paris. The boys, joyriding on a stolen motorbike collided at high speed with a police vehicle which happened to be passing in a neighborhood where the police normally do not venture.

Though Moushin and Lakamy were French-born and of French nationality, their families had them buried in Morocco and Senegal – the countries of their ethnic origin. The self-imposed segregation extends even beyond death. Muslims, who claim that France does not have enough separate Islamic http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2158, do not want to be buried near Christians or Jews.

The death of the two boys led to three nights of heavy rioting in which gangs of criminals – invariably described in the media as “French youths” – burned down dozens of public buildings and tried to kill two police officers in retaliation.

For the first time the French police were confronted with rioters using firearms. On Nov. 28 Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, declared that “opening fire at officials is completely unacceptable.” He promised that “those who shoot at officials will face court for attempted murder.”Two months later Mr. Sarkozy’s words can be evaluated. All in all, seven delinquents have received a jail sentence for participating in the riots. No one had to stand trial for attempted murder. The longest sentence is a 12-month term. Two of the youths were convicted following the testimony of a deputy police officer. Because the court disclosed the identity of the witness, the latter had to face the consequences. When he arrived at his home he was beaten up by a group of young immigrants.

In May, the French voters elected Mr. Sarkozy as president because he had promised to restore the authority of the Republic over France’s 751 no-go areas, the so-called zones urbaines sensibles (ZUS, sensitive urban areas), where 5 million people – 8 percent of the population – live. During his first months in office he has been too busy with other activities, such as selling nuclear plants to Libya and getting divorced. While the French media publish nude pictures of the future (third) Mrs. Sarkozy, the situation in the ZUS has remained as “sensitive” as before.

People get mugged, even murdered, in the ZUS, but the media prefer not to write about it. When large-scale rioting erupts and officers and firemen are attacked, the behavior of the thugs is condoned with references to their “poverty” and to the “racism” of the indigenous French. The French media never devote their attention to the bleak situation of intimidation and lawlessness in which 8 percent of the population, including many poor indigenous French, are forced to live. Muslim racism towards the “infidels” is never mentioned.

Xavier Raufer, a former French intelligence officer who heads the department on organized crime and terrorism at the Institute of Criminology of the University of Paris II, thinks that organized crime has a lot to do with the indifference of the French establishment.

The ZUS are centers of drug trafficking.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2868

2008-01-16