The Pro-French Media

[legion]

Today's headline:

"French Rioting Appears to Lose Strength"

If this happened in this country, the headline would be:

"Rioting, Looting, Burning Ends Second Week--Bush Yet to Respond"

[VINMAN]

Legion, have you no faith in our media??

[legion]

None whatsoever.

[VINMAN]

I'm basically at the point that I've stopped buying the newspaper, and watching the news. It only pisses me off more. Besides all the leftist crap. I'm tired of reading on the front page about which movie star or actress got in an accident or was seen without makeup.

[widebody911]

But Bush would say to Chirac: "Jackie, you're doing a good job!"

[legion]

That came from left field.

[bryanthompson]

The anti-Bush moonbats criticize Bush constantly for finishing the book with the little kids, yet Chirac gets a pass for letting his entire country turn to *****, while he sits in his tower, eating cheese and philosophizing about what the problem is.

[widebody911]

Originally posted by bryanthompson
The anti-Bush moonbats criticize Bush constantly for finishing the book with the little kids, yet Chirac gets a pass for letting his entire country turn to *****, while he sits in his tower, eating cheese and philosophizing about what the problem is.

[legion]

So because we don't have a picture of Chirac drinking wine with his mistress while Paris burns, he is doing a better job?

[Deschodt]

Actually I am with you on the Media thing, but from that, you should draw the conclusion that the whole thing was actually overhyped to generate ratings...

The morons are burning their own cars from their own project neighborhoods... Pretty soon they'll have nothing left to burn ! (and no cars to go burn stuff elsewhere ;-)

Not to say there is not a problem there, but riots are nothing new in France, a country where people strike or march whenever the govt reduces the very generous package of stipends and handouts they give to all sort of lazy bastards monthly... I know, I grew up there...

PS: pro-french Media ? You've gotta be Sh#tting me right ? I have not heard ONE good thing about France since 2 weeks before the war on Irak Started ! NOt even on NPR !

[Tobra]

It is because Americans don't care what is happening in Europe, despite the fact that we could be in a similar boat, running a little behind them.

(BTW, Nice pic of the President. Why do you suppose it is that Mississippi and Alabama got hit by the same hurricane, but we did not hear so much about them looting, shooting at the rescue workers and starving to death? They must have been poor white people I guess. Or maybe, just maybe, the elected officials in Louisiana were corrupt and incompetent, the police abandoned their responsibilities in droves and they had no disaster plan, or if they did failed to follow it. FEMA is not a first responder. The federal government is not going to go into an area when the Governor says, "No thanks, we got this." Sorry, no intention to hijack)

[rrpjr]

Agreed, Legion.

Further, MSNBC ran a story Saturday which may serve as a prototype of the politically correct, morally relativist, Islamic-apologist piffle streaming from the major media.

Headlined "Urban unrest reaches heart of Paris," the story waits until the 5th paragraph to note who is behind this "unrest" (a term which I always thought more accurately described sleeplessness than it did violent arson) -- "bands of youths". And what sort of youths? We have to wait until the 11th paragraph, under a subheading, to discover that the rioters include "many Africans and their French-born children..." who, the writer is impelled to add, and we may be edified to know, are struggling with "high unemployment and despair." Not the average high unemployment and despair of, say, the Depression, but a particular and new variety arising out of complete subsidization of all human needs. The writer didn’t happen to mention the one need only the marketplace seems to be able to provide to the masses – the needs of the human spirit. But of course, why would he – this isn’t commentary, after all.

No mention of "Muslims" yet. Or that the rioters have been screaming "Allah Akbar" and bypassing Arab businesses and districts in their rage of arson. Instead, we get this neutral statement: "France, with some 5 million muslims, has the largest Islamic population in western Europe.” Draw your own inference.

Buried in the 25th paragraph, we learn that "nursery schools have not been spared the fury of those igniting unrest." There's that "unrest" again. (Thought Experiment: try to imagine the media response if a band of Baptists torched a nursery school?)

The closing shot of the piece is that the "unrest will feed support for France's anti-immigration extreme right." At last, as France burns, the real fear!

[Aurel]

[mikester]

Man, you guys are acting like this never happens here...

4 years ago we had rioting in cleveland...should we google some more to see when and where else there has been recent rioting?

France has issues...no doubt but we aren't better by a long shot. We have just as much of the same racism and such here.

[Mulhollanddose]

I was watching the Carter speechwriter, turned journalist, Chris Matthews tonight, waxing perplexed as to why poll ratings are so low for Bush...Like Chrissy is so stupid to not realize the impact media has on public perception...That little fact seemed to slip right by ole' Chrissy.

The media should be drug tested, politically out, and accountable...They wield the true power in this country, and they FREAKIN' know it.

CITIZEN KANE:

Emily: Sometimes, I think I'd prefer a rival of flesh-and-blood.
Charles: Oh Emily, I don't spend that much time on the newspaper.
Emily: It isn't just the time. It's what you print - attacking the President.
Charles: You mean Uncle John.
Emily: I mean the President of the United States.
Charles: He's still Uncle John, and he's still a well-meaning fathead who's letting a pack of high-pressure crooks run his administration. This whole oil scandal...
Emily: He happens to be the President, Charles, not you.
Charles: That's a mistake that will be corrected one of these days.

**snip**

Now, the couple appears to be in a formal dining room. They are also stiff and sharp toward each other. Charles angrily displays his oppressive egotism:

Emily: People will think...
Charles: (cutting in antagonistically and angrily) ...what I tell them to think!
(He accentuates his last word by clinking down his coffee cup.)

[Don Ro]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
I was watching the Carter speechwriter, turned journalist, Chris Matthews tonight, waxing perplexed as to why poll ratings are so low for Bush...Like Chrissy is so stupid to not realize the impact media has on public perception...That little fact seemed to slip right by ole' Chrissy.

The media should be drug tested, politically out, and accountable...They wield the true power in this country, and they FREAKIN' know it.

CITIZEN KANE:


Emily: People will think...
Charles: (cutting in antagonistically and angrily) ...what I tell them to think!
(He accentuates his last word by clinking down his coffee cup.)

"Our job is to give people not what they want,
but what we decide they ought to have." - - Richard Salent, former President of CBS News.

[gaijindabe]

From today's WSJ French Lessons: How to create a Muslim underclass.

Rioting by Muslim youth in some 300 French cities and towns seems to be subsiding after two weeks and tougher law enforcement, which is certainly welcome news. The riots have shaken France, however, and the unrest was of such magnitude that it has become a moment of illumination, for French and Americans equally.

In particular, some longstanding conceits about the superiority of the French social model have gone up in flames. This model emphasizes "solidarity" through high taxes, cossetted labor markets, subsidies to industry and farming, a "Ministry for Social Cohesion," powerful public-sector unions, an elaborate welfare state, and, inevitably, comparisons to the alleged viciousness of the Anglo-Saxon "market" model. So by all means, let's do some comparing.

The first thing that needs illuminating is that, while the overwhelming majority of rioters are Muslim, it is premature at best to describe the rioting as an "intifada" or some other term denoting religiously or culturally inspired violence. And it is flat-out wrong to claim that the rioting is a consequence of liberal immigration policies.
Consider the contrast with the U.S. Between 1978 and 2002, the percentage of foreign-born Americans nearly doubled, to 12% from 6.2%. At the same time, the five-year average unemployment rate declined to 5.1% from 7.3%. Among immigrants, median family incomes rose by roughly $10,000 for every 10 years they remained in the country.

These statistics hold across immigrant groups, including ones that U.S. nativist groups claim are "unassimilable." Take Muslims, some two million of whom live in America. According to a 2004 survey by Zogby International, two-thirds are immigrants, 59% have a college education and the overwhelming majority are middle-class, with one in three having annual incomes of more than $75,000. Their intermarriage rate is 21%, nearly identical to that of other religious groups.

It's true that France's Muslim population--some five million out of a total of 60 million--is much larger than America's. They also generally arrived in France much poorer. But the significant difference between U.S. and French Muslims is that the former inhabit a country of economic opportunity and social mobility, which generally has led to their successful assimilation into the mainstream of American life. This has been the case despite the best efforts of multiculturalists on the right and left to extol fixed racial, ethnic and religious identities at the expense of the traditionally adaptive, supple American one.

In France, the opposite applies. Mass Muslim migration to France began in the 1960s, a period of very low unemployment and industrial labor shortages. Today, French unemployment is close to 10%, or double the U.S. rate. Unlike in the U.S., French culture eschews multiculturalism and puts a heavy premium on the concept of "Frenchness." Yet that hasn't provided much cushion for increasingly impoverished and thus estranged Muslim communities, which tend to be segregated into isolated and generally unpoliced suburban cities called banlieues. There, youth unemployment runs to 40%, and crime, drug addiction and hooliganism are endemic.

This is not to say that Muslim cultural practices are irrelevant. For Muslim women especially, the misery of the banlieues is compounded by a culture of female submission, often violently enforced. Nor should anyone rule out the possibility that Islamic radicals will exploit the mayhem for their own ends. But whatever else might be said about the Muslim attributes of the French rioters, the fact is that the pathologies of the banlieues are similar to those of inner cities everywhere. What France suffers from, fundamentally, is neither a "Muslim problem" nor an "immigration problem." It is an underclass problem.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin almost put his finger on the problem when he promised to introduce legislation to ease the economic plight of the banlieues. But aside from the useful suggestion of "enterprise zones," most of the legislation smacked of big-government solutions: community centers, training programs and so on.

The larger problem for the prime minister is that France's underclass is a consequence of the structure of the French economy, in which the state accounts for nearly half of gross domestic product and roughly a quarter of employment. French workers, both in the public and private sectors, enjoy GM-like benefits in pensions, early retirement, working hours and vacations, sick- and maternity leave, and job security--all of which is militantly enforced by strike-happy labor unions. The predictable result is that there is little job turnover and little net new job creation. Leave aside the debilitating effects of unemployment insurance and welfare on the underclass: Who would employ them if they actually sought work?

For France, the good news is that these problems can be solved, principally be deregulating labor markets, reducing taxes, reforming the pension system and breaking the stranglehold of unions on economic life. The bad news is the entrenched cultural resistance to those solutions--not on the part of angry Muslim youth, but from the employed half of French society that refuses to relinquish their subsidized existences for the sake of the "solidarity" they profess to hold dear. So far, most attempts at reform have failed, mainly due to a combination of union militancy and political timidity.
There are lessons in France for the U.S., too. Advocates of multiculturalism might take note of what happens when ethnic communities are excluded (or exclude themselves) from the broad currents of national life. Opponents of immigration might take note of the contrast between France's impoverished Muslims and America's flourishing immigrant communities.

Above all, those who want America to emulate the French social model by mandating health and other benefits, raising tax burdens and entrenching union power might take note of just how sour its promises have become, especially its promises to the poor. In the matter of "solidarity," economic growth counts more than rhetoric.

[Deschodt]

This article is a pretty fair assessment.

However, cut everyone's benefits and the whole country will be on strike or rioting... So how do you fix THAT ?

Also, it does not mention that the "underclass" has it pretty good in terms of unemployment compensation, child money allocation etc, and it is not fair to compare them to other countries' underpriviledged. They have excellent free healthcare and pretty much $1000-1500 per month in subsidies to do nothing - maybe not all of them (depends on how many kids, how long unemployed etc..), but those are also NOT incentives to go find a job !!

[gaijindabe]

Another good one:

The French way implodes Nov 11, 2005 by Mona Charen

Through a combination of socialism at home and appeasement abroad, the French believed they had found a viable alternative to, in former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's phrase, "jungle capitalism," as practiced by you know who. Jacques Chirac was more direct, condemning "ultra liberal Anglo-Saxon" economic policies, while also famously boasting that France would anchor a European pole in a "multipolar" world, with American influence vastly reduced. With 300 French cities in flames, French pretensions lie singed and shriveled.

By "ultra liberal" Chirac of course meant free market, not liberal in the American sense. American liberals are equivalent to European socialists. And French socialists have set the table for the current crisis. Yes, the rioters are all Muslim youths from North Africa and the Middle East. And the racism of French society may fuel the flames to some extent, but the most important factors in this story are economic. The French have accepted wave after wave of immigrants with no prospect of employing them. In the U.S., the unemployment rate among natives and immigrants is the same. Not so in France.

The French have enacted all of the economic policies that liberals would like to see implemented in this country. So, for example, jobs are protected. If a French company employing more than 600 people wants to fire someone, it must endure administrative procedures that last an average of 106 days. Because it is so difficult to fire employees, French companies are less willing to take risks in hiring. This hurts young, inexperienced workers disproportionately. Once unemployed, 40 percent of French workers can expect to remain so for more than a year. Not only are jobs hard to find, but joblessness is softened by generous benefits. Unemployment benefits range from 57 to 75 percent of the worker's last salary and can last as long as three years (with a cap of 5,126 Euros per month).

The French boast of (and American liberals drool over) France's 35-hour workweek. But French economic growth slowed to 0.1 percent in the second quarter of 2005 and is unlikely to reach 2 percent for the year. American economic growth, by contrast, was 3.8 percent in the first quarter of 2005. Payroll taxes are higher in France than in any of the other 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Writing in The American Enterprise magazine, Olaf Gersemann estimates that per capita income in the U.S. now exceeds that of France by 40 percent. The French unemployment rate is more than 10 percent -- 21.7 percent among 15- to 24-year-olds, and reportedly as much as 40 percent among Muslim youths. Since the 1970s, Europe has created only 4 million new jobs. The U.S. has created 57 million in the same period. Some Europeans may be enjoying their short workweeks and lavish paid vacations, but many others, particularly immigrants, cannot find jobs at all.

And welfare, while generous, does not quell the unrest -- it stokes discontent. Immigrants who cannot find jobs, particularly young males from traditionalist Muslim societies, need dignity as much or more than comfort. Yet French society, with its rigid socialist economy and intrusive state, lacks the engine that can provide jobs -- a vibrant private sector.

But socialism is an insidious poison. The vast majority of French voters seem wedded to their government-supplied goodies -- failing to recognize that their economic and therefore social lives are unraveling because of that dependence. When they rejected the proposed EU constitution last summer, most French voters told pollsters they were worried about losing welfare benefits and trade protections.

The cars aflame in French cities now underscore the dangers of economic stagnation. The French have imported a small army of socially, culturally and economically estranged young men. These Muslim men would have been difficult to assimilate under the best of circumstances. But in a sclerotic, socialist state, where the prospect of jobs and economic advancement is so remote, the task becomes titanic.

So, Monsieur Jospin, which economic system deserves the prefix "jungle"?

Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist and political analyst living in the Washington, D.C., area.