News Roundup
Tuesday, November 8th, 2005 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerOf course the main news is Paris Is Burning (and Toulouse, and Nice, and Strasbourg, and by now probably Chipping Sodbury). Unlike most commentators, I find the current riots fairly unalarming (there again, I described Hurricane Katrina as "just bad weather on the other side of the world," so I shouldn't be trusted in such matters). What many people seem to have forgotten is that the French don't feel happy unless they have a war or a revolution every generation. If the children of North African immigrants are setting cars on fire and throwing molotov cocktails at riot police, that is actually a sign of their integration into French society.
Meanwhile here in Turkey, the prime minister has blamed the riots on the French ban on headscarves in schools. This did not go down well at home, where headscarves have been banned for students and government employees for ages. With uncanny timing, the European parliament ruled that the ban on headscarves cannot be classed as "restriction of freedom" in the progress report on Turkey's EU membership application (due tomorrow). Meanwhile, we've had some riots of our own, but just the usual left-wing protests against the higher education system. So we have Muslim rioters in France and Communist rioters in Turkey - ain't globalisation fun!
In other European news, the French are resisting cutting EU agricultural subsidies - oh hang on, that's not news, is it? While Gallic intransigence on this issue is hardly surprising at any time, at this time in particular the last thing the government would want is a load of angry farmers driving into Paris in their tractors to meet up with the young suburban rioters.
Meanwhile here in Turkey, the prime minister has blamed the riots on the French ban on headscarves in schools. This did not go down well at home, where headscarves have been banned for students and government employees for ages. With uncanny timing, the European parliament ruled that the ban on headscarves cannot be classed as "restriction of freedom" in the progress report on Turkey's EU membership application (due tomorrow). Meanwhile, we've had some riots of our own, but just the usual left-wing protests against the higher education system. So we have Muslim rioters in France and Communist rioters in Turkey - ain't globalisation fun!
In other European news, the French are resisting cutting EU agricultural subsidies - oh hang on, that's not news, is it? While Gallic intransigence on this issue is hardly surprising at any time, at this time in particular the last thing the government would want is a load of angry farmers driving into Paris in their tractors to meet up with the young suburban rioters.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Vive la revolution !
Date: 2005-11-08 02:06 pm (UTC)- I don't know, it sounds like fun. The farmers (here in Brittany) generally arrive en centre-ville in their tractors, and make the roads impassable by dumping tons of potatoes on them. Only slightly less wasteful than burning down insalubrious tower blocks.
The combination of angry farmers and rioting youths could bring down this teetering pretense of an administration. They're already talking about the death of republicanism.
With a non-elected aristrocrat for PM... Monarchy anybody ?
I think the excesses of Louis XVI would seem modest next to Chirac's expenses account.
Re: Vive la revolution !
Date: 2005-11-08 04:32 pm (UTC)A much better kind of protest - the locals get as many free spuds as they want, and the rest is biodegradable.