Riots in France

What are the police supposed to do? I wouldn't do their job.

I think that there is a difference between the way the citizens act in the two countries. You do get riots in both but one tends to be a bit more extreme. Very different personalities,too from my experience with both. But then we all are and each country has a bit of a different bias for genetics 🧬 or whatever reason. You are not supposed to say that these days, of course.

Dinahmo

Casdon

There was a riot in Cardiff only a month or so ago when a police van chased two lads who were riding on electric scooters and they then crashed and died. A number of arrests were made and the policemen were suspended.
I look at the scenario in France and think that could so easily be happening in the UK.

The French are very different to the the English. They still have the instincts that led to the Revolution and I don't think that those instincts are in our DNA. There is a man in our village who was a soixante huitard and he will occasionally regale us with stories about that 1968. The English rioted but the French students ripped up the granite setts and cobblestones and built barricades. I don't remember us being quite so extreme.

I agree that the rationale is different in the UK, but we have had times before when spontaneous riots break out - and there’s a degree of organisation behind them. Young men’s hormones run high in the summer, they just need triggers and they are off. Hopefully it wouldn’t be on such a huge scale though.

Casdon

There was a riot in Cardiff only a month or so ago when a police van chased two lads who were riding on electric scooters and they then crashed and died. A number of arrests were made and the policemen were suspended.
I look at the scenario in France and think that could so easily be happening in the UK.

The French are very different to the the English. They still have the instincts that led to the Revolution and I don't think that those instincts are in our DNA. There is a man in our village who was a soixante huitard and he will occasionally regale us with stories about that 1968. The English rioted but the French students ripped up the granite setts and cobblestones and built barricades. I don't remember us being quite so extreme.

Callistemon21

Casdon

There was a riot in Cardiff only a month or so ago when a police van chased two lads who were riding on electric scooters and they then crashed and died. A number of arrests were made and the policemen were suspended.
I look at the scenario in France and think that could so easily be happening in the UK.

X post

I think this is the one eazybee was referring to.

The police were not actually near the cyclists when they crashed.
The speed at which the cyclists were going in the midde of the roads could have caused a worse incident.

That was the original report Callistemon21, but they were subsequently facing gross misconduct allegations. I don’t think it’s been heard yet, or if it has I’ve missed it.
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/iopc-gross-misconduct-ely-riots-27113461

Casdon

There was a riot in Cardiff only a month or so ago when a police van chased two lads who were riding on electric scooters and they then crashed and died. A number of arrests were made and the policemen were suspended.
I look at the scenario in France and think that could so easily be happening in the UK.

X post

I think this is the one eazybee was referring to.

The police were not actually near the cyclists when they crashed.
The speed at which the cyclists were going in the midde of the roads could have caused a worse incident.

eazybee

I would have thought shooting at the tyres would have been the least dangerous method to stop the car but I am not in the police force dealing with possible terrorists.

The police were blamed recently in Ireland for following, not chasing, two boys riding one electric bike; the boys sped away through a lane closed by bollards where the car could not follow; out of sight of the car they crashed and were killed. I believe rioting followed that when it was clearly the boys' fault for riding dangerously.

The photographs taken at the Sarah Everard vigil show what happened when the peaceful vigil was deliberately turned into a protest. Contrast that with the dignified behaviour of the crowds at the vigils for the three people murdered in Nottingham.

It was in Wales.

The rioting and destruction of the property of innocent people was uncontrolled vandalism.

There was a riot in Cardiff only a month or so ago when a police van chased two lads who were riding on electric scooters and they then crashed and died. A number of arrests were made and the policemen were suspended.
I look at the scenario in France and think that could so easily be happening in the UK.

That’s very simplistic, Maddyone. Are you saying the most heinous murderers such as Wayne Couzens, the Moors Murderers and the Wests only committed such crimes because of their parenting?

We had riots followed by looting here after the shooting by police of Mark Duggan in North London.

I have visited these banlieu's and they are grim. They are not integrated into French society, the inhabitants are disenfranchised and very often poor. This mother who has acted so gracefully with the press probably had a very hard life and deserves some respect. She undoubtably did her best but peer influence is often stronger.. This is yet another wasted life for the boy and now for his mother.. she needs compassion

I don’t think I’m either unfair or unkind. I realise some of you disagree with me but the fact remains that the boy was engaged in misbehaviour and saying driving under age, without a license or insurance is not a major crime is just wrong. Driving without a license and insurance is a very serious crime. It all too often results in the death of completely innocent people and when that happens there is always an outcry. I can’t imagine where some of you get the idea that this boy was engaged in minor crimes.
The person who shot the boy is the one responsible for his death. That is a fact and is undisputed. I have said I feel for the mother. I have said it twice. This is the third time I have said it. However the boy was engaged in really quite serious crime. Had he knocked down and killed a child there would be a different outcry, but thank God, he didn’t. I don’t know if the shooting was racist or fear of terrorism and neither do you. We don’t know why the policeman shot this boy and therefore we should reserve judgment until we know all the facts.
It’s an interesting observation that parents aren’t responsible for how their children grow up and behave. I think they are. I was not lucky because my three are not criminals and neither are you. We brought up our children to know the difference between right and wrong. It’s that simple!

I agree Aveline. The reckless destruction of peoples property and livelihood who have nothing to do with the police or this terrible waste of a young life.

Just disaffected youth looking for an excuse for fighting and vandalism.

The shooting is a matter for the French courts. Some of the rioting reflects dissatisfaction with the treatment of ethnic minorities and is a direct protest against the shooting but a good deal of it seems to be opportunistic - looting shops, arson and having a go at the police. No government can accept that.

vegansrock

Anyone who thinks that rioting and looting would never happen here have short memories.

Last night's franglais turned to the riots in Nanterre. We ave a retired English policeman in our midst who started off by saying that rioting is always caused by the ethnic minorities. I found this astounding and asked him if he remembered the riots in the 60s in London. He didn't but nor did he know them. They were mainly white, educated middle class people protesting about the Vietnam War.

I lived in Brixton during hte time of the 80s riots. These were cause to a certain extent by police behaviour, as documented in the Scarman report. SUSS laws were widely used then. I know there are some good policemen but there are many who aren't, who gain power from the uniform that they wear.

vintage1950

Freya5 - regarding the 'suspected terrorist' - you weren't referring to Jean Charles de Menezes, by any chance? It turned out that he wasn't actually running away from the police but walking to the underground platform.

Interestingly I was working from home that day and listening to BBC Radio which just kept broadcasting about the Menezes killing. What was surprising was how people imagined that they'd seen something that they had not. eg Menezes leaping over the barrier at the tube station, some one getting onto the tube with what looked like a bomb strapped to him. etc etc.

The most surprising thing is that Cressida Dick wanted the police briefing to take place in Cricklewood, rather a long way from Stockwell/Brixton. She refused to stop the traffic in South London.

Apparently Menezes got on a bus from Tulse Hill to Brixton. The police who were watching him got on the bus too. He got off to get on the tube to find that Brixton station was closed so he got on another bus. The police following him did not know that the tube station was closed and got on the bus thinking that his behaviour indicated that he was up to no good.

The rest is history.

Don’t know why the above didn’t show as in italics - typing on my phone, sorry.

maddyone

BlueBelle
Maddy I totally disagree with your very ^single minded and simplistic beliefs that because the boy was doing something wrong he had been badly brought up
Very unrealistic beliefs^

You might have been very lucky and never had your children put a foot wrong but it doesn’t matter how well you bring a child up they can get caught up in mischief

^I have a friend who brought her two girls up impeccably a church goer a local counciller however one child now a middle aged lady has been in trouble all her life ruined by drink and drugs I could repeat this story with many different upstanding people You canbring children up to the letter but outside influences always come into play
Your views read like a fairy story not in the least realistic or normal
And your post is unfortunately rude.
^There is no need for rudeness because I don’t agree with your view.
The mother brought the boy up. Who is responsible? It’s been said on here that she was a single parent. Unfortunately single parenthood can result in delinquent behaviour, particularly in teenage boys, note I said can, not does. It’s been noted here in the UK and France is not different in that respect. The parents hold some responsibility when they fail to bring up their children to behave properly. You may not like that assessment, but it does not make it untrue. The fact remains that if the boy had not been behaving illegally, he would have still been alive!^

Agree with BlueBelle and don’t think her post was rude towards you maddyone.

Your view on the mother’s parenting are very simplistic. There are many examples of well brought up children going off the rails, either as adults or whilst still young teens.

In many countries including the UK there is widespread disaffection with the police, not just by minorities but the population in general.
I dispute the “racism” claims it’s more the poverty and low income communities that have to scrape a living anyway they can, migrants and ethnic communities make up a large part of that group. It shouldnt happen and would not have to a white boy in a nice white neighborhood, the police dont want to kill anyone but when they see a threat they drawn their guns and unintentional shootings happen.

If you arm the police however well you train them mistakes are going to be made, thank goodness we don’t routinely arm them in the UK most other countries do!.

I would expect all French people regardless of ethnicity to be outraged by this brutal police act.
If many just aren’t bothered it says a lot about racial prejudice in France.

This mother didn’t shoot her son, a policeman has been arrested so we can assume he’s considered to have acted inappropriately (illegally)

As Oreo and BlueBelle rightly point out, simply blaming parents, especially the easy target, single mothers, is unfair and unkind. This mother will live the rest of her life grieving her son. Like most mothers, she’s likely to search her soul finding guilt for any perceived failings in her parenting.

There are many families who have one child amongst their children, who is ‘difficult’. Despite them having the same loving care their sibling receive, they make wrong choices, drugs/anti social behaviour etc. many settle down but some don’t and cause heartache

Galaxy

If we are blaming mothers presumably we need to aim some at the policemans mother, he has after all been arrested.

Absolutely.

I honestly can't see how blaming this young man's mother helps at all. And it really doesn't make too much sense.

vegansrock

Anyone who thinks that rioting and looting would never happen here have short memories.

I don't think anyone here thinks that vegansrock. I'm a London girl, originally not far from Tottenham, and remember 2011 well.
Seeing as we are touching on demographics here, what was meant was that in London, as a comparison, you get all ethnic groups, including bourgeois white British, living side by side. There are houses worth a few million right next to slummier areas, and there is a form of integration and upward movement. (Hackney, Finsbury Park, Bethnal Green). However, the banlieues of Paris and Marseille we were talking about don't have that. They are more like ghettos and never the twain shall meet.
I can sort of understand the need for the disaffected inhabitants to be heard in this way, particularly on the issue of policing.

If we are blaming mothers presumably we need to aim some at the policemans mother, he has after all been arrested.