By Kim Rahir in Paris
A policeman in Paris walks next to a burning car on Sunday night.
Official Paris is in an uproar. For 11 straight days, riots have consumed Paris and now they are spreading across the country. French President Jacques Chirac finally broke his silence on Sunday night and went on television to talk to his shell-shocked fellow citizens.
But the real debate about the nightly riots is taking place far from the halls of power. It's taking place on the Internet. Here, people who normally would never come into contact with each other, are exchanging views on the violence. Others -- many of whom have been ignored by France for years -- have found a platform for their views. One blog, which has since been blocked, showed a photo of a burning car. Beneath the picture was the sentence, "Good job people."
The first reaction of the blog www.bouna93.skyblog.com was that of solidarity with the two youths who were electrocuted to death on October 27 after apparently trying to hide from police in an electricity substation. Beneath the headline, "In memory of Bouna and Ziad," readers were invited to enter their own messages. Hundreds of entries speak of sadness for the two teens who died so young. "We love you. May your souls rest in peace. We are thinking of you," one reads.
The messages are mostly written in chat jargon full of abbreviations and grammatical errors. "May Allah lead you into Paradise," reads one message addressed to the two boys. Another writes, "electricity, that's painful, I'm afraid."
But almost as soon as the riots started in the neighborhood of Clichy-sous-Bois, other messages of solidarity quickly followed. "Thank you Clichy! Montfermeil is with you," read one. Another read simply, "Courage Sevran, we are with you," when that neighborhood became the target of rioting. Photos soon joined the messages, many of them showing burning cars and police officers chasing down rioters. Not all of it was to the liking of the providers -- the blog www.bouns93.skyblog.com was quickly blocked, "because the rules weren't respected."
Doing the work the French don't want to
But the entries that remain tell a story of rage, sadness and incomprehension. "Why are we angry," one entry asks? "Because my father was brought here 30 years ago to do the work that the French didn't want to do. He was stuck into a housing project. He managed to move his ass and we managed to escape the projects, but all those who didn't move their asses are still stuck in the projects and they are full of rage."
Night after night, more and more cars are going up in flames and the unrest is spreading like a brush fire across the entire country. The residents of the poverty-stricken suburbs protest against the violence in marches or try to form citizen groups to calm the enraged teens. On the Internet, though, there are other, more ominous voices to be found. One entry, for example, from the provocatively-named "pureporc," is filled with anti-Islamic and racist insults. The next entry in the list reads simply, "Are we actually in France?"
And there is no doubt: The anger of the immigrant teens in the ghettos and their wild rioting has enraged many others. Their fury has resulted in dozens of racist and inhuman entries in numerous blogs. Dozens of entries merely point out what "idiots" the two teens must have been to try hiding in a transfer station.
But just as the Internet has proven useful to those wanting to vent their frustration and anger at the violence enveloping France, others -- those involved in the violence -- have found the Internet a useful organizational tool. Plans for further attacks have made their appearances in different blogs -- like that from "Brahim." "Nice work people," he writes. "The cops are petrified of us, everything must burn, starting Monday, the operation 'Midnight Sun' starts, tell everyone else, rendezvous for Momo and Abdul in Zone 4 … jihad Islamia Allah Akhbar."
User "Samir's" message is just as threatening. "You don't really think that we're going to stop now? Are you stupid? It will continue, non-stop. We aren't going to let up. The French won't do anything and soon, we will be in the majority here."
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