French-style Crackdown

Back when I spent two years in Lyon as US Vice Consul in the early '70s, the Compagnie Republicaine de Securite, CRS for short, would roam the streets in Black Maria vans or Paddy Wagons to keep public order. Now the gendarmerie appears to be kept in vulnerable squad cars, much more dangerous than big vehicles.

True to fashion, the criminal-coddling New York Times buries the money quote that tells the subtext deep in its story about the Paris suburbs beginning to simmer early in the summer.

The police in the two towns northeast of Paris, Montfermeil and Clichy-sous-Bois, arrested 13 people, including Muhittin Altun, 18, the only survivor of the electrocution accident that set off the wave of violence last year. Two youths died in that incident.

About 15 youths attacked the police with rocks and other projectiles in a housing project in Clichy-sous-Bois about 9 p.m. Tuesday. The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, and arrested a number of the alleged assailants, including Mr. Altun, said a national police spokeswoman, who under police rules cannot be identified. The attackers also burned a number of vehicles and set fire to a police car in which four officers were sitting, the spokeswoman said. The officers escaped unharmed.

Then the NYT says the young Altun:

"was seen with a rock in hand, and he was seen by the police throwing this rock toward the police vehicle," said the judicial official, whose name may not be published under French court practices. Mr. Altun's lawyer told the French news network LCI that his client was not involved in the violence.

What did the rough/tough constabulary/judiciary do?

Mr. Altun was RELEASED [emphasis mine] Wednesday morning but faces charges of "taking part in a group armed with rocks" and "voluntary degradation of a police vehicle as part of a group," which could carry sentences of up to five years, said a spokesman for the court in Bobigny, near Clichy-sous-Bois.

Yep, that'll demonstrate just how tough the crackdown will be. Guess an overnight cooling-off will keep this fellow in line. The Gaullist hoods back in the heyday of Le Grand Charles may not have been subtle, but they were effective. In comparison, girlie-man Chirac makes George W. Bush look wildly popular and respected, but there is hope:

The tough law-and-order interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, visited a police station in nearby Gagny on Tuesday night, stressing the government's determination to curb more trouble.

"I will not allow more disorderliness — neither in Clichy-sous-Bois, nor in Montfermeil, nor anywhere else in the republic," Mr. Sarkozy told reporters.

However, the hand-picked successor to the Louis Quinze ["apres moi, le deluge"] Chirac, PM Dominique de Villepin, just does not have the political musculature.Looks like a real female, Socialist front-runner Segolene Royal, may replace those pair of effetes now at the top, the last paragraph may hint.

Much of the violence last year was in areas of high unemployment and poor housing, where youths of immigrant origin complain of discrimination. The center-right government has announced measures to alleviate the problems, but little has changed.

If elected, Sarkozy will predictably confront the problem, and the Socialists will predictably finesse it.

If the problem is not addressed, a Le Pen or quelq'un pareil will eventually benefit from the xenophobia that lurks beneath the surface of French public life.