President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency Tuesday, paving the way for curfews to be imposed on riot-hit cities and towns in an extraordinary measure to halt France's worst civil unrest in decades after 12 nights of violence.
The worst civil unrest in decades--indeed, no riots have been carried out simultaneously in more cities in all French history--but it took 12 days to find that an emergency exists. I have to ask, at what points in the last 12 days were the actions of the "youths" acceptable?
But the emergency isn't being confronted, as the 12-day delay clearly implies. Check out what a state of emergency allows the French government to do:
Under the emergency decree, local government officials will be able to put people under house arrest and demand that weapons be handed over. Public spaces where gangs gather can be closed. Disobedience could lead to up to two months in prison, Villepin said.
Wow. After 12 days, the police can finally tell rioters to stay home and turn over their weapons. And the government can close public places! Well, duh! No wonder the police couldn't control the riots! Being armed and outside your home in public places are pretty basic ingredients for a riot.
But wait, a late and barely confrontational response isn't the extent of France's surrender. Dominique de Villepin (who, as Scrappleface has noted, is a man) has attempted to surrender to the rioters:
Villepin also reached out to the heavily immigrant suburbs, acknowledging that racial discrimination there is as a "daily and repeated" fact of life. He said job seekers with foreign-sounding names are sometimes not given equal consideration as those with French names, adding that fighting such prejudice "must become a priority."
If the jihadis aren't dominating these riots, the weak French response will propel the jihadis to the top by giving them prestige in defeating the French government. The French government will keep trying to understand their Moslem minority, while the Moslem minority will understand that the government will always back down when confronted with angry young Islamists. Moderates in the Moslem community will be silenced and more will support the jihadis. Everyone can see who the strong horse in this fight is.
Sadly, Mark Steyn may be right:
Some of us believe this is an early skirmish in the Eurabian civil war. If the insurgents emerge emboldened, what next? In five years' time, there will be even more of them, and even less resolve on the part of the French state. That, in turn, is likely to accelerate the demographic decline. Europe could face a continent-wide version of the "white flight" phenomenon seen in crime-ridden American cities during the 1970s, as Danes and Dutch scram to America, Australia or anywhere else that will have them.
As to where Britain falls in this grim scenario, I noticed a few months ago that Telegraph readers had started closing their gloomier missives to me with the words, "Fortunately I won't live to see it" - a sign-off now so routine in my mailbag I assumed it was the British version of "Have a nice day". But that's a false consolation. As France this past fortnight reminds us, the changes in Europe are happening far faster than most people thought. That's the problem: unless you're planning on croaking imminently, you will live to see it.
If these riots aren't jihadi-inspired, the weak French response guarantees the next one will be.
We'll all live to see it because the Euros are surrendering far faster than expected.
