Follow-through

An important concept. Should be practiced more often. Wretchard at The Belmont Club writes about the French Muslim riots (now in their ninth day and extending into Paris itself). One of the hopes for France as a Nation is their Minister of the Interior - Nicolas Sarkozy. He is abrasive, speaks his mind, sharp as a tack and is generally right. He had a handle on the riots when they first broke out but his efforts were stymied by Dominique De Villepin (who is a man) and Chirac and the result was chaos. Here is Wretchard with some thoughts and a link to a post that offers a real insight into the dynamics of the situation (the "millet" system):

Once in France
One of the frustrations about covering events in France is the lack of metrics. There are a few which can be used. The numbers of cars burned on a given night. The number of towns affected by disturbances. The numbers of persons arrested. But there is a lot of critical information that can't be captured in these figures. Here are two reports, one from a site in Brussels and another from a Dutchman which have been cool and collected in the past. Here is what they have to say. The titles are the authors and not mine. I have edited only to shorten the excerpts where necessary

The Brussels Journal

The Fall of France
From the desk of Paul Belien on Sat, 2005-11-05 13:41

If Nicolas Sarkozy had been allowed to have his way, he could have saved France. Last Summer the outspoken minister of the Interior was France�s most popular politician with his promise to restore the law of the Republic in the various virtually self-ruling immigrant areas surrounding the major French cities.

These areas, which some compare to the "millet" system of the former Ottoman Empire, where each religious community (millet) conducted its own social and cultural life in its own neighbourhoods, exist not only in France, but also in Muslim neighbourhoods in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and other countries. ...

The experience of his youth has made Sarkozy ... virtually the only one who understands what second generation immigrants really need if they want to build a future. More important than the so-called "social benefits" � the government alms provided by welfare politicians like Chirac, Villepin and their predecessors � is the provision of law and order. This guarantees that those who create wealth do not lose it to thugs who extort and rob and burn down their properties.

Sarkozy�s decision to send the police back to the suburbs which had been abandoned by previous governments ... would lead to riots was inevitable. Sarkozy knew it, and so did Chirac, Villepin and the others. ...

What happened instead was that Sarkozy's "colleagues" in government used the riots as an excuse .... Bringing down ... Sarkozy ... was told to shut up ... Villepin began a "dialogue" with the rioters. As a result the riots have spilled over from Paris to other French cities. Do not be surprised if this French epidemic soon crosses France�s borders ...

As for Sarkozy, the best thing this immigrant son can do is to resign and make a bid for the 2007 presidential elections ... But this could soon change if he remains a member of a Villepin government which is clearly unwilling to abolish the current "millet" system.

Peaktalk

France's Intifada
It�s hard to find some good reporting on the Paris riots, one of the newspapers here this morning claimed that the violence had abated somewhat. Well, that�s hardly the case. Below I�ve translated an excerpt from the Dutch public broadcasting organization�s report on night number nine, Friday night ... The term "Paris Riots" has become a complete misnomer. There's war going on in France and that is coming from someone who is not given to hyperbole, but the facts have made that conclusion inescapable. ...

Wretchard then explains the bona-fides of these sources, offers some additional material and closes with this paragraph:

What de Villepin's planning probably missed was that the millet system plus the Internet formed a combination that would go through the 21st century "impassable Ardennes" like s..t through a goose. The millet system meant that potentially hostile foci were were already pre-deployed outside the cordon, often in cities outside Paris. And the Internet of course ensured that command and control could be exercised at a distance by command cells despite any number of deployed riot police. My guess is that by day 6 or 7 the French leadership began to doubt whether their impenetrable defenses would hold. By 9th day, I think, a real panic had begun to set in and they are now scrambling for a Plan B.