Have you heard about the latest riot in Paris? A young guy travelling on the metro punched a couple of controllers when they asked him for his ticket and it all went downhill from there. Conflicting reports suggest there were about 7 wounded (mostly police and metro staff), and 13 arrested including a number of minors. It’s intriguing to see how the international media deal with these things, and how there’s always a rush to find some kind of deep meaning behind it all.
With only a month to go till the presidential elections the candidates have made much political mileage out of it. Mme Royal (left) sees the riot as evidence that the incumbent government has completely failed in its security policy. Mr Sarkozy (right) wants to tell the French that he will not be on the side of those who think that in order to be heard they must demolish a train station. Mr Bayrou (right) denounces former interior minister Sarkozy for having turned the police into a “force of repression”.
It’s amazing the political influence a young fraudster and his stroppy mates can have.
What do the police “repressors” have to say about it? Found this interesting quote from a policeman in the Figaro : “Soon after we arrived on the scene, representatives of associations defending the rights of clandestine immigrants and journalists from the extreme left media turn up to watch the whole thing. They get in our way, they muck up our work, and we’re forced to cancel the operation…Some stations have become zones of lawlessness and the police can only watch delinquency prosper.”
I wasn’t there - I’ve just heard about it like everyone else. But I can’t help thinking that there isn’t any deep meaning behind it all - it’s simply the inevitable result of fatherlessness and boredom amongst city youth, which is a big and complex problem which will never be solved by politics.
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