Sunday, November 06, 2005

French Protests Continue for 10th Straight Day

North African Leaders Struggle to Address Root Causes of French Violence


Successive immigration schemes by governments across North Africa to fill their slumping economies demand for idle overpaid workers has government officials reeling to find the root causes of French violence after 10 straight days of riots. Decades of urban redevelopment plans have not rid the African suburbs of their Third World feel. Some high-cost housing projects that once were seen as models of urban progression, with heating, bidets, and tree lined streets, have degenerated into no-go zones where even police ride through without stopping, windows rolled up.

The problem is not immigration per se, but a failure of of the native population to be assimilated into the superior French culture. Leaders across Africa admit reluctantly that they have been slow to provide their immigrant population with stuffy sidewalk cafe's and unpleasant over roasted coffee beverages.

Nations from Morocco to Egypt need more than a police response to rioting. They needs a humane response as well, one that signals that they, as the poorest and most backward nations on earth, care about the benefits and vacation time of the tens of thousands of more fortunate people throughout the region.

"We can no longer afford to be seen as callous and uncaring" stated a Libyan government spokesperson. "We need a concerted, new effort with all the diplomatic and economic means at our disposal to help resolve the disputes that our French immigrants have."

The Libyan government announced plans for a nationwide three week vacation next august. The entire country will spend several weeks together at summer camps in the Sahara, bunking together, eating and playing sports with "the more recently immigrated Libyans." Most important, they will also spend several hours a day engaged in small discussion groups. They are calling them "coexistence" groups.


A French protester stops bicycle traffic in Morocco.