L’apaisement, c’est nous

Get this, from Craig Smith’s front page report in the New York Times:

The government response is as much a test between Mr. Sarkozy and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, both of whom want to succeed Mr. Chirac as president, as it is a test between the government and disaffected youths.

Mr. Villepin, a former foreign minister, has focused on a more diplomatic approach, consulting widely with community leaders and young second-generation immigrants to come up with a promised “action plan” that he said would address frustrations in the underprivileged neighborhoods. He has released no details of the plan.

If the damage escalates and sympathy for the rioters begins to fray, Mr. Sarkozy could well emerge the politically stronger of the two.

If the damage escalates! Eleven days of unstopped and escalating riots around Paris and elsewhere in the country, and that’s not considered sufficient damage to make sympathy for the rioters fray! And is Smith actually saying that up to this point the French have had sympathy for the rioters? If that is true, then between that “sympathy” and Villepin’s “action plan” for the underprivileged, we have a complete picture of what’s been going on in the French society and government, and why the riots are still continuing, and why, just as I said about the British last July, short of a radical change in France’s entire mentality, or, failing that, the formation of a revolutionary government by the healthy parts of the society, the French are doomed.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 07, 2005 09:00 PM | Send