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Posted by Toby Inkster on 10/29/26 11:34
Luigi Donatello Asero wrote:
> Could you compare somehow the riots in Sydney with the ones in France in
> Paris or do you think that they have completely different reasons?
I don't think the two are unrelated -- the Paris riots may well have
planted the seeds of an idea in the minds of some of the rioters in Sydney.
But they're certainly for different reasons. In French society, anyone who
doesn't fit the French cultural norm is viewed as an outsider and shunned.
(It is for this reason that minority languages like Occitan, Breton and
Frankish are all but extinct in France; whereas Spanish minority languages
like Basque and Catalan are still healthy.) The French model of
multiculturalism assimilates everyone -- there is less an attitude of
"everyone is equal" and more of an attitude of "everyone is identical".
That said, there is a lot of racism in France. People from ethnic
minorities are routinely discriminated against. On one hand they're being
expected to be the perfect French citizens, yet their fellow countrymen
are treating them as outsiders.
On top of that, there is no approved outlet for any tensions -- the
government more or less ignores race relations issues. In their view,
everyone in France is French, so how can there be any racial
discrimination?
Discrimination leading to high unemployment, poverty, ghettoisation and
resentment: there's no surprise that riots broke out in Paris; the only
surprise is that it didn't happen sooner.
The Paris riots have given fuel to agents provocateur worldwide, and I
expect to see a few more riots in other cities before things settle down
again.
Cronulla, where a lot of the trouble in Sydney has been going on, is a
poor area, which is very ethnically mixed. Throw in a few trouble-makers
and some intense heat (it's the height of summer) and tension is bound to
be high.
I *am* surprised that it trickled up to Maroubra though: it's a fairly
affluent area.
--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
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