Friday, November 04, 2005
Disillusionment in France
A reporter who spent last weekend in Clichy and its neighboring towns of Bondy, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bobigny heard a single overarching message: The French authorities should keep out.
"All we demand is to be left alone," said Mouloud Dahmani, one of the local "emirs" engaged in negotiations to persuade the French to withdraw the police and allow a committee of sheiks, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, to negotiate an end to the hostilities. President Jacques Chirac and Premier de Villepin are especially sore because they had believed that their opposition to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 would give France a heroic image in the Muslim community. That illusion has now been shattered — and the Chirac administration, already passing through a deepening political crisis, appears to be clueless about how to cope with what the Parisian daily France Soir has called a "ticking time bomb."
It is now clear that a good portion of France's Muslims not only refuse to assimilate into "the superior French culture," but firmly believe that Islam offers the highest forms of life to which all mankind should aspire.
2 Comments:
By 
Counter Trey, at
Fri Nov 04, 01:20:00 PM:
The best commentary so far:
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2057
Villepin calls for withdrawal of French occupying forces from France.
By Counter Trey, at
Sat Nov 05, 12:49:00 AM:
I never took French, but the BBC had coverage of Villepin saying "oui sur ender"
I wonder what that means.
