France

The Battle for France

What caused the riots? Karim Boudouda was an authentic bad guy, no doubt about it. He’d piled up a stack of convictions for armed robbery in his 27 years, and when he held up a casino in the little French town of Uriage-les-Bains last month, he was armed to the teeth with an Uzi submachine gun and a Swiss-made assault rifle. Fleeing the police, the Algerian-born French citizen headed for his home turf in a dilapidated housing project filled with immigrants on the outskirts of Grenoble. In the shootout that followed, Boudouda died with a bullet in his head. For three nights the neighborhood where he’d taken shelter erupted in the kind of violence that swept outer-city slums throughout France in 2005. Dozens of cars went up in flames as young thugs taunted the cops, who poured in by the hundreds. Somebody fired live rounds at the police, which is rare in a French riot, but nobody else died. None of the cops were wounded. This time there was no chain reaction. The violence didn’t spread. The fires died.  More from Newsweep>>

The Battle for France by Stephen Brown What a difference a riot can make. The three nights of armed mayhem in a Muslim quarter of Grenoble in July that saw numerous cars burned, police officers fired upon and their families threatened has ignited an unexpected and energetic response from France’s politicians. In what may be the last chance to halt France’s slide into anarchy as well as an indication of how endangered the French social order is, the country’s center-right ruling party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)), is set to introduce two constitutional amendmentsinto the National Assembly next month to deal with the country’s deterioratingsocial situation. Both concern cancelling French citizenship for convicted criminals. France’s immigration minister, Eric Besson, the person responsible for drafting the amendments, said revoking French citizenship is not anti-constitutional and therefore will receive clearance from France’s constitutional council. The forfeiture of French nationality, Besson says, currently exists in France, but only for convictions for serious offences like terrorism and espionage. Before 1998, however, it was allowed under common law “for a certain number of crimes.” “It is relatively simple,” said Besson. “It suffices to return to the law that prevailed until 1998. That is not anti-constitutional.” Frontpagemag

Qaeda’s north Africa wing calls Sarkozy ‘enemy of Allah,’ wants revenge against France

DUBAI (AFP) – Al-Qaeda’s north Africa branch called for revenge against France and labelled its President Nicolas Sarkozy an “enemy of Allah” over a deadly raid last month, in an online message seen by AFP on Monday. On August 2, jailed AQIM leader El Khadim Ould Semane also threatened France and Mauritania with retaliation. “I say to the infidels and French Crusaders… (we) will not rest until French blood has been spilled,” Semane had said. (Yahoo News)

French Convert Obsessed With Islam