France: Gone

I'm not gloating. I think right now I'm actually sorry to see it go, and I'm sympathetic for the Hell on Earth its citizens will go through for the next twenty years, until they emigrate to other countries.

Did you know it was this bad?

Maybe [the marauding Youths of Undetermined Ethnic Extraction] felt invulnerable because there is so much torching, so few arrests, even fewer tough jail terms, and no bad publicity for criminals. Facts pop up once in a while like fish bubbles on a quiet lake—hundreds of cars burned on a relatively calm night, at least a hundred every night all year long, 2500 policemen injured since January 2006—and disappear without consequences.

...

France suffers from the absence of healthy sensationalism to deal appropriately with sensational events. Words bring people to life. The victim of this vicious attack hardly exists in the public mind. Her friends and family are shown from a distance walking into the hospital, a professor speaks a few words, there is no image of her face in happier times.

The most moving description comes from 30 year-old Rachid, cited in Le Parisien. He was standing at the bus stop when the bus went up in flames. He saw the young woman get off the bus, almost fainted at the sight of her burning body, “she was black but she looked white, her skin was peeled.” Overcoming his fear that he would cause further harm by touching her, he carried her away from the bus, even more afraid that it might explode. He tried to douse the flames by covering her with his jacket and at the same time handed his cell phone to a friend who called for an ambulance.

Why we aren’t shown Rachid’s heroic face? Is he afraid of being identified by neighborhood racaille that would seek revenge if they could get their hands on him? Police investigators are encouraging escaped passengers who had not yet not come forward by offering them the exceptional possibility of testifying anonymously.

At least a hundred cars per night?

posted by Ace at 04:26 PM

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