[URBANTH-L]NEWS: the week Paris burned

[Paul]

These riots have threefold implications. First, it is a harbinger of things
to come if the basic needs of the world's majority are not met. The
globalization advocates had better deliver the goods if their "trickle down
theory" holds any water. Second, this provides an important avenue of
research--when do people say "basta" and raise holy hell? Third, it warns
anthropologists and other social scientists to stop arguing the fine points
of postmodernism or some other theory du jour and start applying a
disciplined knowledge to solving the issues of deprvation that have been
festering for decades, indeed centuries.

In short, it's time to get on with the research and applied tasks that
really matter.

Paul McDowell
Instructor
Santa Barbara City College.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Angela Jancius" <acjancius at ysu.edu>
To: <urbanth-l at lists.ysu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2005 9:31 AM
Subject: [URBANTH-L]NEWS: the week Paris burned


> Violence sweeps France in 10th night of riots
>
> Alex Duval Smith in Paris and David Smith
> Sunday November 6, 2005
> The Observer
>
> France was reeling from a 10th night of violence yesterday as rioting
swept
> from the suburbs of Paris to become a nationwide crisis.
>
> In towns and cities across the country, youths armed with gasoline bombs
> torched scores of vehicles, nursery schools and other targets. Police said
> that at least 607 vehicles were set alight, with more than half outside
the
> Paris region.
>
> The Foreign Office yesterday warned British tourists to 'exercise extreme
> care in the affected areas'.
>
> The mayhem came in direct defiance of a warning from Interior Minister
> Nicolas Sarkozy that rioters faced stiff punishments. He said setting cars
> on fire could 'cost dear in terms of sentences' and that the government
was
> 'unanimous' about standing firm against violence, which many are
describing
> as France's worst civil unrest since the 1968 student revolts.
>
> Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was yesterday forced to call a crisis
> meeting of his ministers and a top Muslim official as the rioting
continued
> to spread.
>
> Last night five classrooms at the Sleeping Beauty Nursery School in
Grigny,
> in the Essonne region south of Paris, went up in flames as well as two
> classrooms at another school.
>
> In a measure of public dissatisfaction with the government, Yvan Lemaitre,
> the parent of one of the pupils at the Sleeping Beauty school, told French
> radio: 'Burning a school is unacceptable but the man who lit the fire is
> Sarkozy.'
>
> By 1am this morning, at least 607 vehicles were burned - 13 of them inside
> Paris. The overall figures were expected to climb by daybreak.
>
> The troubles threatened to spiral out of control as arson attacks were
> reported in cities to the north, south, east and west, many known for
their
> calm, like the cultural bastion of Avignon in southern France and the
resort
> cities of Nice and Cannes, where cars were torched.
>
> In the Normandy town of Evreux, arson attacks laid waste to at least 50
> vehicles, part of a shopping centre, a post office and two schools, said
> Patrick Hamon, spokesman for the national police.
>
> He added that five police officers and three firefighters were injured
> battling the blazes.
>
> Arson was also reported in Nantes, in the south west, in Lille and Rennes
in
> the north and Saint-Dizier, in the Ardennes region east of Paris. In the
> eastern city of Strasbourg, 18 cars were set alight in full daylight,
police
> said. In Toulouse, there were 30 arson attacks.
>
> Some 2,300 police were being brought into the Paris region to bolster
> security. In the Essonne area south of the city, a recycling factory was
set
> on fire and at least 35 vehicles torched.
>
> Twenty-eight cars were torched in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, north east
> of Paris, where the riots erupted after two teenage boys were accidentally
> electrocuted as they hid from police, apparently thinking they were being
> pursued. French authorities have denied that police were to blame.
>
> France-Info radio reported residents catching two 14-year-olds trying to
> light a fire in Drancy, north-east of Paris, and turning them over to
> police.
>
> Even in the heart of Paris three cars were damaged by fire in the
Republique
> section, north east of City Hall.
>
> Meanwhile, earlier yesterday, hundreds of people joined marches in Paris
> suburbs to protest against the violence. In Aulnay-sous-Bois, which has
seen
> some of the worst of the rioting, residents walked past burnt-out vehicles
> and buildings with banners reading 'No to violence' and 'Yes to dialogue'.
>
> De Villepin called the emergency cabinet meeting to attempt to regain the
> momentum and show a united front. He called on ministers to speed up plans
> for urban renewal and asked the influential imam of the Paris mosque,
Dalil
> Boubakeur, to appeal for calm.
>
> But it was Sarkozy who again came in for attack. After his meeting with De
> Villepin, Boubakeur launched a veiled attack on the minister's outbursts,
in
> which he called the disaffected young men on estates 'louts'.
>
> Police trade union official Gilles Petit said the rioters would 'stop at
> nothing' in their attacks.
>
>
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