The Suburban Paris Riots: Now at Day 8 (UPDATE–and Spread to Denmark)

The response to eight days of rioting in the suburbs of Paris smacks of appeasement:

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said it will take time to resolve the problems underlying eight nights of rioting around Paris.

He said that there were fewer clashes with the police on Thursday night, although violence has spread to new areas and outside the French capital.

France has been stunned by the rioting in immigrant-dominated areas.

The prime minister has been meeting a group of young people from “sensitive” urban areas, AFP news agency said.

The meeting is part of a series of discussions initiated by Dominique de Villepin with a view to launching an action plan for the suburbs by the end of the month.

But violence continued on Friday, with a handful of cars set on fire outside a court where several people were appearing to face charges connected with the riots.

By comparison:

• The 1967 Detroit riots lasted 5 days. Over 1,000 were injuried, and 43 lives were lost.
• The 1967 Newark riots lasted 5 days, ultimately leaving 23 people dead and 725 people injured.
• In the wake of Martin Luther King’s death in 1968, “Riots erupted all over the country, primarily in black urban areas. At least 110 cities experienced violence and destruction in the next few days, resulting in roughly $50 million in damage. Of the 39 people who died, 34 were black. The worst riots were in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Over 22,000 federal troops and 34,000 national guard were sent to aid local police — the largest ever called to deal with domestic civil disturbance. In many cities the devastation was so great that it left a permanent scar, which was still evident decades later.”

Unless it’s going unreported, the Parisian suburb riots are thankfully, and in contrast to the US riots of the late 1960s, not leading to death, but the destruction appears to be on a similar scale.

Regardless of what one thinks of how the French government has behaved towards our country and the rest of the world (and I have been among those very critical of French foreign and economic policy), I hope everybody is praying that they get this situation under control and effectively work on truly solving it.
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UPDATE: Riots have spread to areas beyond Paris (HT Instapundit). And I meant to note that the the late 1960s riots, and others in the US, have almost all occurred in relatively compact inner-city neighborhoods, while the Paris-area riots have been spread out over multiple areas. Imagine, to attempt a comparison, if there were simultaneous Los Angeles-area riots sporadically spread over a triangular zone from Manhattan Beach to Santa Monica to Pasadena, and you get an idea of what French authorities are up against.

UPDATE 2: Riots carried out by Muslim youths are taking place in Denmark too (as is the case in France, which is obvious but rarely mentioned). Also see this on Denmark at American Thinker.

UPDATE 3, Nov. 5: It’s getting worse–”a ninth night of violence that spread from Paris suburbs to towns around France.” Much worse–”In a particularly malevolent turn, youths in the eastern Paris suburb of Meaux prevented paramedics from evacuating a sick person from a housing project, pelting rescuers with rocks and torching the awaiting ambulance, an Interior Ministry official said.” Much, much worse–”Most attacks have been in towns with low-income housing projects, areas marked by high unemployment, crime and despair. But in a new development, gangs have left their heavily policed neighborhoods to attack others with fewer police, spreading the violence.“