RE the US comparison, interesting as well. I’d only point out that America’s own version of “compromise and politically-correct bowing to the opinions of all parties in the state” didn’t quite spare us from extremely bloody race riots, both white-on-black (Chicago 1919, Detroit 1943, Tulsa, Atlanta, Nebraska, South Carolina, southern Illinois etc etc in the period 1917-1923) and black-on-black and black-on-all during the last forty years.

As to what the French will lose, it looks like the first victim will be the superbly high standards of the French primary and secondary educational system, and the sacrosanct concept of meritocracy allied with it. Based on Chirac’s latest speech it appears that the French will move quickly, as I guessed, toward some kind of affirmative action scheme.

Which is probably as necessary for France in 2005 as it was for the US in 1965 and for the next 20-25 years or so, to jump-start the creation of an assimilated, prosperous, loyal nonwhite middle class and to give real teeth to anti-discrimination legislation in its first few years.

This is going to be even more painful and problematic for the French than it was for us. They don’t even have a vocabulary for race, or official statistics broken out by race. How are they going to chart the success of something they don’t measure and heretofore have decreed does not even exist?

Civic faith is not a new idea for France, of course; e.g. they created a rather violent one during the Revolution. The problem is that France has always been more of a violent Republic than a democracy. That is to say they are willing to advance various intellectual and political causes in the name of the Republic, but it is always for them a bitter civil war to define this republic. Intellectual debate is thus encouraged – which is why France has such a powerful intellectual and artistic tradition – at the expense of compromise and politically-correct bowing to the opinions of all parties in the state. Republican destiny has been more important than muddling through.

IOW, the trade-off for France’s past cultural vitality, if it was a trade-off, was the necessity of a rather monolithic republicanism. One fights for universal truths as a Frenchman, and not for hyphenated compromises. The French intellectual tradition has not been what it was for a generation now. Hyphenated Frenchmen may be desirable from a democratic perspective – and even inevitable from the perspective of a global marketplace – but may not be desirable from an intellectual one. THe whole world is losing something now; let us find a new reality that can be fruitful too.

Appreciate your very thoughtful reply. Agree with much of what you say, including this:

We need to give them more than jobs; we need to give them something in which to believe

As I’ve mentioned on other threads, I believe that the civic faith that you’re implying was elegantly expressed by these kids themselves at the World Cup in 2000. Specifically, a vision of a multiracial France in which one can derive some sense of dignity and self-worth from one’s north african beur or sub-saharan noir identity and still be a loyal and patriotic Frenchman. A France which does not pretend that Zinedine Zidane isn’t different from a pampered white kid from the XVIIeme arrondissement, or that his success does not have special significance for north africans in France, and yet one where Zidane is still proud to call himself French. A France whose elites do not sneer at the notion of even a peaceful, prosperous, loyal and largely assimilated ethnic neighborhood such as Little Italy as “unthinkable” in republican France.

Note that all of the above are taken for granted in our own land of immigrants. But they represent a sea change for France, which at present cannot even admit the possiblity of any citizen having a dual identity. That’s the heart of the problem.

The very reason that the British suffered the 7/7 attacks is the same reason that the French have thwarted and will likely continue to thwart every attempted terror attack on French soil these last ten years: while the British scruple over whether this or that jihad-monger’s speech rights are being trampled upon, the French have gone 180 degrees the other way.

The French are dead-on, and viciously so, in their understanding of the Islamist threat. They are utterly clueless as to the racial nightmare upon them, one that can no longer be obscured by their pretensions to a color-blind republic. The former threat is under control. The latter problem is far, far greater than you all suppose, and will haunt France for many years. Probably at least as long as it has haunted us lo these last four decades.

But so much of the hysteria on this side of the pond ignoes the simple, obvious, overwhelmingly important fact that the French authorities, despite their incompetence at stamping out car-torchings, are and have been for decades ruthlessly stamping out Islamism and Islamist plots, to an extent and with a severity that stands in stark contrast to their British counterparts’ record.

What so many Americans fail to grasp– probably because France’s foreign policy emphasizes appeasing and currying favor with all manner of Arab states– is that in the domestic policy sphere, France pursues a completely opposite iron-fist policy, the most ruthless, no-BS anti-jihadist and anti-terror policy seen anywhere in the western world. French intelligence cooperates very closely with ours regarding their domestic terror threats. And that policy has been very effective during the last ten years.

So for all the scorn heaped on the French here, I don’t see any recognition of the fact that the French police and judicial system cannot realistically be much tougher than they already here. They’ve already done away with habeas corpus protections. They have pre-emptive arrest powers, wiretapping, interrogation without benefit of counsel.., in effect, the French have their own Gitmo within France.

So pardon me if I view this determined effort to pillory the French authorities for not cracking down on Islamism as nothing more than the ignorant man’s revenge on the French (and US MSM) media for their own bullshit-fest regarding Katrina. Enjoy it, savor that schadenfreude, but just remember that within their own borders the French are already kicking the merde out of their Islamist suspects.

The second sentence puts forth a conclusion– the riots are not a “non-Islamic problem”, ie are inspired by Islamism or led by Islamists or both.

The first and third sentences state facts: the imams who supposedly (per Ms Philips) figured among those inspiring and/or leading the riots have

a) issued a fatwa condemning those same riots and

b) have been asked by the police, who bore the brunt of the violence in said riots, to crack down on the rioters.

Huh?

Recall my IRA analogy in which I said it was as inaccurate to say that these riots are about Islamism as it would be to discern a Catholic motive to the (marxist) IRA’s mayhem. Ms Philips’ argument is like concluding that, because the IRA are drawn from Ulster’s Catholic minority, and because that community so often defers to its Catholic priests, a call from the Ulster Constabulary upon those Catholic leaders to try to rein in the IRA is ipso facto proof that the IRA’s agenda is all about imposing a Catholic theocracy on Ulster.