Author: David R. Sands and Sharon Behn
Publication: The Washington Times
Date: November 10, 2005
URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20051110-122503-2518r.htm
The rioters who have burned out neighborhoods
in cities across France for a fortnight are overwhelmingly of North African
and Arab ancestry, overwhelmingly young, overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly
cut off culturally and economically from the larger French society -- and
overwhelmingly Muslim.
But saying they're Muslim is a subject of
angry dispute. French officials downplay the religious connections, and some
newspapers, particularly in the United States, avoid identifying the rioters
as Muslim.
For the moment at least, the frenzy may be
subsiding. With curfews in Paris and more than two dozen other cities, and
a 12-day state of emergency in effect, French authorities reported yesterday
a decline in reports of violence. Car burnings fell by nearly half. But vandals
attacked a number of sites, including a large store in the north and a newspaper
warehouse near Nice.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has
taken a hard line on quelling the violence, ordered the deportation of 120
foreigners detained by French police since the unrest began.
Mr. Sarkozy, who has denounced the rioters
as "scum," said, "I have asked regional prefects to expel foreigners
who were convicted -- whether they have proper residency papers or not --
without delay."
Most of the rioters do not appear to be foreigners,
but French citizens, young men from first- and second-generation immigrant
families from Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia -- former French colonies
-- and other North and West African nations.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin blames
the rioting on "structured groups," apparently euphemism for "Muslim,"
but French officials say they have no evidence that international Muslim radical
groups are involved in promoting the violence.
"For the moment, we see no link at all
with the networks that we work on," French anti-terrorism judge Jean-Francois
Ricard said in Paris. Arrest figures released so far indicate that most of
the hoodlums are young and male. About half are younger than 18.
They're technologically savvy. Investigators
say the rioters are using the Internet, cell phones and text-messaging to
coordinate attacks. Der Spiegel, the German newspaper, quoted one of the text
messages from one rioter to another: "We aren't going to let up. The
French won't do anything and soon we will be the majority."
Alexis Debat, a former French government counterterrorism
analyst, says the ringleaders are "hard-core delinquents" from impoverished
Muslim neighborhoods that surround many French cities. They have criminal
records that include petty theft, vandalism and drug dealing, but investigators
say they see few obvious links to fundamentalist Islamic movements that have
declared war on the West.
"This is a problem of poverty and opportunity,
not a problem of Islam," he says, noting that there were fewer incidents
in neighborhoods where radical Muslim organizations were strongest.
But Mr. Debat says the ringleaders have been
joined in the streets by a much larger group of second-generation North African
and Arab immigrants who are turning to Islam because they feel alien both
in France and their ancestral homes.
"The only possible identification left
for many of them is Islam," he said. "They feel betrayed by France,
and I don't blame them."
Reporters for the French newspaper Le Monde
spent a night on the streets with a group of rioters near the city of Aubervilliers.
"It's like driving a dog into a corner," one of the rioters told
them. "We are not dogs, but we are reacting just as any animal would
do."
They complain of rough intimidation by the
French police, condemning as "blasphemy" the tear-gas bomb fired
at a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois, the Parisian suburb where some of the first
riots took place, for which a government official has apologized. Rioters,
for their part, have torched synagogues and churches to cries of "Allahu
akbar" -- the Arabic slogan, "God is great."
Robert S. Leiken, an immigration scholar at
the Washington-based Nixon Center, speculates that the riots could lead to
a split between moderate and more radical Islamic jihadist groups, especially
if the government does not make lasting reforms.
He notes that the head of a leading moderate
French Muslim organization was pelted with rocks when he appealed for calm
earlier this week. "We may be seeing a split inside the French Islamic
community. It makes sense that the jihadists would very much want this [violence]
to spread."