Paris: The Beirut of Europe?

The riots in Paris apparently now have spread to other French cities and even to the French Caribbean. YouTube has run videos of rioters, not only burning cars and buildings but carrying and firing what appear as fully automatic weapons. Reportedly, police have arrested some 2600 persons for rioting and looting. The silly President Macron, pulled away from an Elton John concert, has deployed 45,000 police across France to contain the violence, and has cancelled another of his thousands of official visits to Germany.

It makes difficult reading about and viewing these events because one knows that about fifty percent--at least--of what one gets is either a lie or presented in such a convoluted way as to hide bare and brutal facts. The initial reports seemed very similar to reports in the US involving a police shooting: a definite St. George Floyd vibe to it all. You know: vague as to whom was shot and why exactly. We learned, of course, that the cop was white and the dead "youth" of "Algerian descent," not clear, of course, whether legally in the country--can't ask. The shooting took place at a traffic stop, with some of the action caught (of course) on video; the tape seems to show two policemen leaning into the car through the open driver side window, one officer has his weapon drawn. The car suddenly jerks forward and the policeman shoots. 

You have to dig around to discover that the "youth" had a long criminal record, was "known to police," and was driving, without a driver license, an expensive unregistered Mercedes with Polish plates when the cops stopped him. 

Was the car stolen? Why did the car suddenly jump forward? Did the cop fear for his life? Why did the officer have his weapon out and aimed at the "youth"? The policeman has been charged with homicide, and all but convicted by the political establishment and the media. Despite that, we get riots  "demanding justice," and, well while we're here, let's take stuff from the Apple Store, some Nikes, a Louis Vuitton handbag, or three, etc. Let us not forget to burn down the cultural center.

The rioters appear to be mostly "minorities," as the press so delicately puts it, supported, of course, by scraggly white "youths" and cheered on by fat white girls--I didn't know France had so many fat girls . . . live and learn. Oh, and, naturally, the UN has to chime in berating France's cops as racist.

Does all this sound familiar to American readers?

We've lived through many cycles of this here in the USA. In the end, the facts are rarely as initially presented by the media, e.g., Kyle Rittenhouse, Trayvon Martin, "hands up don't shoot," and on and on.

Beyond this particular story, will we ever hear about what is really happening in France and Europe? There is an invasion underway that is dramatically changing the social and political scene in Europe. France, Germany, Belgium, Norway. The demographics of European cities have been permanently altered. Go to Paris or London, and whole swathes of those cities look like Timbuktu or Marrakesh. I won't be visiting those places again any time soon; if I want to see urban rot, I'll go to San Francisco.

The Trojan horse has entered the gates and disgorged its contents, and 1980's Beirut is the result.