I Wouldn't Call It War Yet

But that's certainly what it's starting to look like in France. I'm not surprised at this because I've been reading Mark Steyn for the past four years. What does astound me is the reaction of the French authorities to these riots. Aside from Nicolas Sarkozy, the French reaction has been to say "Please stop rioting so that we can address your grievances." It is astounding that the French leadership, who are supposed to be masters of realpolitik are so immersed in the airy sentimentalism that passes for multiculturalism these days that they do not recognize the fundamental truth that strength must be met with strength, not concessions. Where force is needed, they offer rewards for engaging in this violence and so show themselves to be weak, which will only encourage more violence.

Certainly these Muslims have legitimate grievances which should be addressed at some point, but that is irrelevant at this point for two reasons. First of all, in a society governed by the rule of law, as France purports to be, resorting to violence eliminates the right to redress of grievance. Only when order has been restored and those responsible for the violence severley punished can a redress of grievance be contemplated, lest the rule of violence be shown superior to the rule of law. Secondly, the rioters aren't interested in redress of grievances, they're interested in taking over, interested in establishing areas governed not by the rule of law, but by the rule of Islam. It would be foolish to think that this is anything but an attempt to bring the French government to its knees in these regions, to make the French government so desperate to stop the violence that they will effectively hand over control of these regions to the men who can stop the rioting with a word, the imams.