UN Secretary General Kofi Anan in a Speech in Salzburg Austria, April 2001 titled “Dialog Among Civilizations”

In the meantime, the French government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, is struggling to contain the violence and rioting. Facing relentless onslaught, even law enforcement officials are speaking out against the counter-productive language of Interior Minister Sarcozy.

“The situation in the suburbs is at a boiling point, and we’re in the middle of it 24/7, so the last thing we need is to pour gasoline into the fire with comments like ‘cleansing the cities’. It’s inappropriate and counterproductive,” says Francis Masanet, Vice Secretary General of France’s Police Union.

Escalating Frustrations

While experts, politicians and sociologists debate the likely reasons for the recent ongoing violence and riots, fingering everything from failed integration policies to a rise in poverty and unemployment in the suburbs, particularly among young immigrants, many agree that the interior minister’s aggressive rhetoric and inflammatory language sparked an already simmering fire of unrest, igniting a wave of destruction from thousands of desperate and frustrated young rioters, tainting the French governments image as it struggled to maintain control amid the escalating violence.

One Mayor in the French suburb of Rosny-sous-Bois likened the situation to “Guerilla Warfare” and called for calm and collective thinking and acting by citizens and police alike, to start containing the furious rage that has cut a scorching path through many of Paris’ suburban immigrant neighborhoods.

To be continued...

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