The French Riots - Can It Happen Here?

The riots in France seem to have settled down. No one can be sure exactly why. What has not been widely reported is that hundreds of cars were set on fire in other, similar riots around Europe.

In France the riots were much more dramatic than what was depicted on U.S. television. (check out some of the French media pictures)Almost 9000 vehicles were burned. Many stores and buildings were destroyed. There were 20 nights of rioting. Some 3000 people were arrested across Europe as a result of rioting.

Can it happen in the United States? That question has to be answered in context of understanding what happened in France. The standard over simplification by the U.S. media has been to talk about how the French government failed the immigrants in their country by failing to provide employment. The cover of The Economist magazine on November 12 heralded “France’s Failure” in big headlines. The magazine placed blame, in part, on a “high minimum wage.”

It is unreasonable to think that France, or any country for that matter, has an obligation to provide jobs for an endless stream of immigrants. It is also unreasonable to think that there should be no minimum wage (or a very low one) so the economies of countries like France can interface with lower standards of living which might be expected because someone immigrates from a less fortunate country. It is more of a “lowest common denominator” kind of thinking that threatens to bring the world’s best economies to their knees, so all common people in every country can ultimately be equally, moderately poor. To whatever extent there are those in the U.S. (Liberal or Conservative) who believe the country has an obligation to successfully employ any number of persons who flock to our shores, the French situation should be a good lesson.

There are some who believe the riots had less to do with jobs than with the desire to be left alone in communities to implement Islamic law, rather than the laws of France. Testifying before a U.S. congressional committee investigating the French rioting,Frank Gafney of the Center for Security Policy offered that Muslim extremist leaders are insisting that the French authorities stay out of their communities and allow them to be run strictly by Islamic law:

"When, as has been indicated, there is some pushback, they then translate themselves or trying to transform themselves into the protectors of all Muslims and thereby help endear themselves or at least legitimate themselves within their communities, not as fringe, not as zealots, not as ideologues but as the protectors of the faith.
…I was listening the other day to National Public Radio describing the outbreak of polio that has recently been heavily contained after I think two years of trying to put that horrible genie back in the box. Nowhere in the report was it mentioned that the only reason, the only reason there was an outbreak that not only afflicted Nigeria, where it began, but then disseminated widely in Africa and then elsewhere around the world was because Islamist Imams in Nigeria trying to dominate their community and their country – they have prohibited their followers from taking American vaccines for polio on the pretense that it was an American conspiracy to sterilize their women and to inseminate their children with AIDS."

Could the riots happen in the U.S.? The publication World Net Daily is claiming they could, and may involve a coalition of Muslim extremists, Hispanic gangs, and radical Hispanic activists in the West and Southwest. WND quotes a militant organization called "Aztlan” as predicting explosive riots, particularly in California.

Although the rioting people in France may have been frustrated, unemployed African and Arab youth, it is tempting to believe that the instigation of the French riots was probably the result of religious and political ideology which had been stirring unrest for some time. If similar rioting does occur in the U.S., none should have the ill-conceived notion that it is because our country didn’t live up to some fantasy obligation that we should provide an endless supply of good paying jobs to anyone who wants to immigrate to our shores. That is not the obligation of the French, and it is not the obligation of American citizens.