Islamic Propensity For Terrorism (Parisian Riots)

Disabled woman set on fire as Paris riots spread

· Passengers caught in blaze as youths ambush bus
· New attacks thwart hopes that troubles may be over

Jon Henley Paris
Saturday November 5, 2005
The Guardian


A 56-year-old physically disabled woman was being treated in the burns unit of a Paris hospital yesterday after the bus she was travelling in was set alight by youths in the northern suburb of Sevran.
The incident was the ugliest yet in the violence that has convulsed the suburbs of Paris during the past week. Last night, fresh attacks were reported in two dormitory towns outside the French capital where youths set fire to cars and two buildings.

There were also signs of the violence spreading beyond Paris, with arson attacks reported earlier in the day in Rouen in northern France, Dijon in the east and Marseille in the south.
Officials nonetheless expressed hope yesterday that the country's worst urban unrest in a decade could be on the wane. But on Thursday alone, more than 500 cars were torched in the Paris region, an increase on previous episodes.

Police said the Sevran attack left the woman with 30% burns. The number 15 bus had just left the town's railway station at about 9.30pm when it was forced to a halt by burning rubbish bins strewn across the road. Two hooded youths forced open the front door, emptied jerry cans of petrol over the floor and on the front-seat passenger and the driver, then threw lighted rags inside.

The driver, who helped the woman off the bus as other passengers escaped through a rear door, was taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation. "We are treating this as attempted manslaughter," a police spokesman said.

Immigrant Rioting Flares in France for Ninth Night

By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: November 5, 2005
AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France, Nov. 4 - France's worst urban violence in a decade exploded for a ninth night on Friday as bands of youths roamed the immigrant-heavy, working-class suburbs of Paris, setting fire to dozens of cars and buildings while the government struggled over the violence and the underlying frustrations fueling it.

Remy de la Mauviniere/Associated Press
A car burned early Saturday in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, just north of Paris, during a night of rioting.
The unrest, which has also spread to other parts of France with large North African and Arab populations, prompted the American and Russian governments to warn citizens visiting Paris to avoid its poor, outlying neighborhoods. France reduced train service to Charles de Gaulle Airport after two trains became targets of rioters earlier in the week.

A handicapped woman riding a bus in the Sevran suburb suffered burns over 20 percent of her body Thursday night after two youths doused the inside of the bus with a flammable liquid and set it on fire. Youths have also burned cars in Dijon, in the east, and in Marseille, in the south.

The violence has isolated the country's tough-talking, anticrime interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, whom some people blame for having worsened the situation with his blunt statements about "cleaning out" the "thugs" from those neighborhoods.

France has been grappling for years with growing unrest among its second- and third-generation immigrants, mostly North African Arabs, who have faced decades of high unemployment and marginalization. Critics say Mr. Sarkozy's confrontational approach has polarized the communities and the government.

"It's a game that has been started between the youth and Sarkozy," said a French-Algerian man wearing Chanel sunglasses outside Aulnay's mosque, in a converted warehouse. He would give his name only as Nabil. "Until he quits," he said, "it's not going to get better."

France's foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, warned Thursday that France risked losing the integration battle in immigrant neighborhoods to radicalization of religious-based movements (diplomatic code for Islamic extremism).