Anti-white violence in France

Olivier Guitta:

On March 8, tens of thousands of high school students marched through central Paris to protest education reforms announced by the government. Repeatedly, peaceful demonstrators were attacked by bands of black and Arab youths--about 1,000 in all, according to police estimates. The eyewitness accounts of victims, teachers, and most interestingly the attackers themselves gathered by the left-wing daily Le Monde confirm the motivation: racism.

Some of the attackers openly expressed their hatred of "little French people." One 18-year-old named Heikel, a dual citizen of France and Tunisia, was proud of his actions. He explained that he had joined in just to "beat people up," especially "little Frenchmen who look like victims." He added with a satisfied smile that he had "a pleasant memory" of repeatedly kicking a student, already defenseless on the ground.

Another attacker explained the violence by saying that "little whites" don't know how to fight and "are afraid because they are cowards." Rachid, an Arab attacker, added that even an Arab can be considered a "little white" if he "has a French mindset." The general sentiment was a desire to "take revenge on whites."

Unfortunately this does not seem to be an isolated incident:

A woman was pushing her baby in a stroller down an aisle. Behind her was a well-dressed, prosperous-looking Arab woman in a hurry. Suddenly the Arab woman pushed the mother, saying, "Move, dirty Frenchwoman" ("Dégage, sale française"). The familiar epithet "dirty Jew" is apparently being extended for more general use.

Another remarkable verbal innovation is the use of the word "Gaulois"--an inhabitant of Gaul, the part of the Roman Empire that became France--to identify the non-Jewish, non-Muslim, non-black French. Today, the term is used mostly by Muslims and blacks, but, amazingly enough, French whites are starting to pick it up as the rift between ethnic communities grows wider. Journalist Stéphanie Marteau, in an online interview about her new book on Muslim France, for example, speaks of "the Gaulois vote."

Nowhere are the new tensions more obvious than in schools, as documented in a report on the Islamization of French schools delivered to the minister of education in late 2004 by the inspector general of national education, Jean-Pierre Obin. Not publicly released at the time, it has since been leaked and posted on the website Proche-Orient.info.

Obin discusses the attitudes of Muslim students, some as young as first graders. He reports, for instance, that Muslim students, asked their nationality, answer, "Muslim." When they are told that this is not a nationality and they are French, some insist that they can't be French since they are Muslim. This should come as no surprise. The presidential commission that examined the issue of secularism in 2003 reported that "extremist groups are working to test the Republic's strength and push some young people to reject France and her values."

Obin concludes his report with an appeal to the lucidity and courage of French leaders. So far, however, the Chirac administration has shown little willingness to address the new racism.

Unfortunately, capitulating to the enemy is more in the nature of the French than fighting back. Let us hope that the rest of Europe and the United States learns something from the foolishness of France's immigration policies.