February 26, 2006: French Wake-Up Call

To protest a horrible racist murder, an estimated thirty-three thousand people, including ministers from opposing parties, marched in Paris today. This may not equal the crowds they muster for a transit workers strike, but let's hope this marks a new resistance to racism and anti-Semitism in France. Here's the JPost report:

Tens of thousands of demonstrators, including ministers and politicians of all stripes, joined in a show of force against racism and anti-Semitism on Sunday, marching through the French capital after the torture and killing of a Paris Jew.

Some 33,000 people took part in the march, police said. Anti-racism groups that organized the march did not immediately issue a figure. Smaller marches took place in other cities, including Lyon and Bordeaux, where Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard, named a cardinal this week, took part.

Police patrolled the crowd in Paris, where an array of ministers, including Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, joined the march. Opposition Socialists, including former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, as well as members of other parties, were also present. They made their way from the Place de la Republique to La Place de la Nation, in eastern Paris, in a chilling cold.

Here is Nidra Poller's terrific article on the murder of Ilan Halimi, which precipitated this march.

UPDATE: Allison is putting the Paris demonstration at 100,000. JPost is reporting 200,000 across France.

Comments

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France is too far gone. Just do the math. One out of every thirty residents may be an unassimilated Islamic male under the age of forty. On top of that, the indigenous French are simply not having enough children. The country is doomed. Will the last person abandoning this land of losers please turn off the lights? Don’t feel sorry for the French. They have done this to themselves.

Posted by: David Thomson at February 26, 2006 11:03 AM

A good sign, but calling it a march against "racism," just sounds so, oh...kumbayiash, politically correct, cliched, and safe, somehow.

This murder was not "racist." or at least "racism" is not the worst thing about it.

These people READ KORANIC VERSUS WHILE THEY TORTURED HIM.

Racism is pervasive, often shallow, and in many ways a nuisance that can be difficult to avoid when different groups bump up against each other.

Racism can be as little a thing as being surprised that your "aticulate" doctor is black, but this...This was more specific and more heinous, and I hope this "march against racism" mentions the significant contribution of a particular religion to this horror.

Posted by: Snippet at February 26, 2006 1:08 PM

In France it will always be August 1942 for its Jews.

Posted by: Ripper at February 26, 2006 1:11 PM

Just call it this century's version of The Phony War. Remember the outcome of the last one?

Posted by: Rhod at February 26, 2006 1:22 PM

“A good sign, but calling it a march against "racism," just sounds so, oh...kumbayiash, politically correct, cliched, and safe, somehow.”

Excellent point. The march should have specifically named Islamic nihilism. Not to do so, is essentially just wasting time.

“According to the press reports, the French government was at least partially motivated to suppress the issue of anti-Semitism because it feared inflaming the passions of the French Muslims who make up between 10 to 13 percent of the French population and comprise a quarter of the population under 25 years old.”

--Caroline Glick

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1139395477657&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Do the math. France is finished. The country simply has too many Muslim radicals within its borders. Its "wake-up call" came too late.

Posted by: David Thomson at February 26, 2006 2:01 PM

Caroline,

Yes, that's what I was getting at.

Call the damn thing by it's name.

Islamic nihilism is - besides the perps - the real cause of this despicable act.

Yeah, sure, racism is bad and everything (really), but that's NOT what this is about and I'm tired of people pretending that it is.

Posted by: Snippet at February 26, 2006 2:13 PM

Oh, I mean,

"Dave. Yes, that's exactly the point I am getting at..."

For a second there, I thought Caroline Glick herself had responded.

(Note to self. Read post carefully, THEN respond.)

Posted by: Snippet at February 26, 2006 3:13 PM

33,000 in the march. Nice round number.

How many were those moderate Muslims we read about and see on PBS' NewsHour opining about the outrageous insulting cartoons or writing letters to Le Monde?

Sadly, this one horrific death has to be added to the massacre of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam and all the other crimes and injustices mentioned in Bruce Bawer's eye opening book "While Europe Slept."

Shine the light of outrage and media disclosure for months and months, incident after incident, march after march, death after death. Then maybe . . . maybe, we will then really hear from the moderate Muslims.

Posted by: jedrury at February 26, 2006 3:34 PM

yea, call it whatever you want, it'll be just words, sounds melting into the crisp air...
i lived and studied in france, demonstrating in the street for them is like bush bashing for democrats - an instinct. but if you think that these demos will, can or might make a change, think twice. strikes, acts, deeds, actions, these things work, and i don't smell, sense, or feel it in the air, yet...
do you feel the pesimism in my writing? you're right...
think of what's going on in europe right now as a prelude, and i'm not sure i want to write a prelude for what...
have a good one, everybody.

Posted by: yadid at February 26, 2006 3:45 PM

The coming confrontation must be shouldered as soon as possible; violence may ensue, but it will not be as horrific as it will be if we wait until the radicals can be assimilated. Assimilation is not possible for most Muslim men; they have been indoctrinated to follow no vision but a misguided reading or teaching of the Quran as not subject to rational debate or even discussion. They are, in other words, facists, in a new Islamic form. We ignore this fact at our peril.

Posted by: Blake at February 26, 2006 4:26 PM

Roger:

read the L.A. Times this morning. They do handstands trying to take any Muslim vs. Jew connatation to this sick crime. It's just a gang thing. The fact that he was a Jew had little to do with it. "If they could have got a French Cop they would have done the same thong. That probably is true. But it was Muslim hate for the Jews inspired, they do absorb the Jew bashing that comes from Eurabia and the fact that they may be criminals on top of it does not eliminate the religous aspect of this crime. Hands over the eyes, hands over the mouth, hand over the ears. Denial, denial, denial, denial.

Posted by: Kevin Peters at February 26, 2006 4:33 PM

All Things Beautiful TrackBack Are You A Heretic?:

Roger Simon has more, and points us to an important article by Nidra Poller @ IsraPundit:

"No longer able to deny or play down the racial motive, the investigation is entering a new phase. One of the most troubling aspects of this affair is the probable involvement of relatives and neighbors, beyond the immediate circle of the gang, who were told about the Jewish hostage and dropped in to participate in the torture."

Posted by: Alexandra von Maltzan at February 26, 2006 11:18 PM

but let's hope this marks a new resistance to racism and anti-Semitism in France
I can only hope so.

However, after spending the past week reading a lot of reports and watching the France2 coverage, I'm very very pessimistic.

Posted by: Fausta at February 27, 2006 8:58 AM

Roger,

Shouldn't the headline be "European Jews Wake Up Call"? Sad as it is for these people to abandon their ancestral homeland and everything they know, however, they should wake up and realize that there is no "Last Stand", and "things will not get better".

Fox&Friends this morning reported that a similar Mardi Gras type parade in Germany (I forgot which town), this year they banned images making fun of muslims. You can parody any other figure in the world, but one touch on those mooslems, you are banned. [According to local officials, it has nothing to do with freedom of expression. They just don't want to "provoke" violence.]

Posted by: Always right at February 27, 2006 9:15 AM

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