How the welfare state literally feeds criminality

One trade union representing policemen described the unrest as a "civil war" and called on Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to impose a curfew in areas that have been affected by the violence to ensure that the violence did not spiral out of control

writes Sophie Louet.

"We have found our thrills: playing with riot police in the evening," one 22-year-old told an Agence France-Presse reporter yesterday. "As long as the police come and provoke us in the evening, we'll bring out the Molotov cocktails, stones, petanque balls, planks."

"In the day, we sleep, go see our girlfriends, play video games," the young man continued as a half-dozen youths nodded. "And in the evening, we have a good time: At 9 p.m., we go and fight the police."

This led Robert Tracinski to write the following comment:

Speaking of individualism versus collectivism, the story [above] reveals one of the contributing causes behind the past week of violence in the suburbs of Paris. Rioting Muslim youth talk about how they throw Molotov cocktails at the police all night. But what do they do during the day? The sleep in their subsidized apartments and lay about on the public dole. This is how the welfare state literally feeds criminality.

For decades, the Europeans have looked down on America as some kind of backward, regressive country, rife with poverty, violence, racism, and religious bigotry. This was always hypocritical, given that it was Europe, not America, that collapsed into the bloodiest wars in history during the 20th century. But it is especially ironic now that France is collapsing into mass unemployment and a racial/religious civil war.