You’re wrong about the French appeasing rioters. On the contrary, the French are had asses when it comes to terrorism laws or anything that affects domestic tranquility. You might want to consider that French riot cops are equipped with fully automatic weapons standard.

And while we’re at it, a few more words on behalf of the much-maligned French. They took horrifying losses in WW1 but unlike the Russians did not fold up but fought on to the end. In WW2 they still lost more men than we did, despite their military collapse. In Viet Nam they fought hard and lost — just like we did. They fought hard in Algeria. They were in Gulf War 1 with us and have made a number of forays into Africa.

It was our friends the Brits, incidentally, who attempted to appease Hitler: Chamberlain was not a Frenchman. The French reputation is not for appeasement but for collaboration. This derives from Vichy, a rump government set up with French fascists and under the threat of German occupation. Vichy is a very dark mark on French history, but let’s recall that we also have appeased more than once: after all, we sat out WW1 till the very end, ignoring German outrages, and we sat out WW2 until the Japanese forced our hand. Even then we did not declare war on Germany, they declared war on us. Part of the reason we sat out WW2 in the early years was a huge American contingent of appeasers and Hitler sympathizers who were not silenced until December 7.

Our own history with terrorism is much the same: Carter appeased Iran, and so did Ronald Reagan with his tail-between-the-legs scurry from Lebanon. Bush pere sat on his thummb while Saddam masssacred the Shia we had encouraged to rebel. Clinton took no determined action in response to the attack on our destroyer and Khobar Towers, and Bush junior likewise did nothing until 9/11 forced our hand.

We Americans have a richly undeserved reputation for unrelieved toughness in all cases. Sometimes we bargain with terrorists, sometimes we run away, we appease, we ignore, we pretend things aren’t happening, sometimes we win, sometimes we pull out a draw, and sometimes we lose. Much like the French.

You write: “The French, unlike the Americans, are a “people.â€Â? France is the land of the French, not a nation formed around an idea. Even the children of immigrants aren’t considered French. ”

According to American Muslim Society, “For a long time, the French citizenship law declared every individual born on French territory a French citizen.” So I’m not sure if you talking legal French citizenship or culturally disconnected.

This is the very problem with multiculturalism in the United States. Bearded pinko Marxist professors and their political and media-cultural love muffins encourage the “cultural mosaic” theory of the United States, rather than assimilation; Assimilation into an idea of free markets and capitalism, a meritocracy rather than centralized income redistribution system.

One way of doing that is to support “identity” politics — thus no one is an American, except rich white males, but rather a Caribbean-American, a Haitian-American, a Chinese-American and, yes, African-American. As such, no conversion of virtuous American ideals is required and despicably this Marxist ID politics piggy-backs the Civil Rights Movement. It is PC-newspeak and it is a testament to the power of language.

France doesn’t have a Muslim problem and these aren’t Muslim riots. These are French people rioting and France should deal with them as needed as French criminals. Without passion or prejudice.

Of course, the French won’t, because they are French and they will appease, because that is what the French do — is appease and if appeasement doesn’t work they surrender. So yes, we have every reason to be afraid.

It reminds me of the movie with Johnny Depp, What’s Wrong with Gilbert Grape, where his autistic brother climbs the telephone pole and won’t come down. Once again, American (Johnny Depp) will have to drop what we’re doing (winning a war) and deal with our autistic brother (the French) fifty feet in the air with no fathomable idea on how to get down.

Everyone should calm down. They’re torching cars and low-income housing. God creates wild fires in Yosemite to create new life. God creates riots in ghettos to create new opportunities. But I guarantee, the French will fungle up the opportunity…because their French and unfortunately we’re related and we’ll have to talk them off the pole. The exact sentiment I have towards one of my brother-in-laws.

I hope the American left is paying attention to this on many different levels.

Yer doin’a heck of a job, Jean-Louis.

Having been lectured by French people on more than one occasion on the failures of American society, there is definitely some schadenfreude on my part. The French deride our Anglo-Saxon culture and its presumed indifference to equality, quality of life, culture and so on, and then the French lose better than 10 thousand old people because of a summer heat wave, or watch their suburbs turned into war zones because they cannot find a way to assimilate millions of Muslims.

That having been said, we have plenty of things to explain away here at home — the BTK killer, the Washington sniper, high minority infant mortality rates, a laughable public education system and most recently New Orleans. Probably we should leave the French to their mess and see if we can do something about ours.

But the disaffected youth with no sense of future and a vague awareness of its Islamic past is fertile soil for al Qaida and groups like it; cf, London bombers of this past summer. Look for more of that in the future.

When America faced a somewhat similar crisis 40 years ago, there was Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin. Appreciate them. It’s been said the Islamic world needs a Martin Luther right now. The part of it that lives in majority non-Muslim lands also needs a Martin Luther King.

It puts the situation into perspective and demonstrates the impact of France’s welfare state philosophy upon this group, as well as the seeds for the violence and desperate behavior that’s being exhibited in the Paris suburbs.

Add to all of that a growing immigrant minority (they have lots of children) in ghetto housing that has not (or will not) assimilate into French society, and you have an explosive combination.

We do need a strong France. But their own social policies will cause their downfall, if they don’t recognize the problems where they begin: the welfare state.

And for the record: I don’t hate France – its the French that I have issues with, but the real estate looks really nice.

“What is important is the effect of economic institutions on the self-selection of immigrants and on their incentives when they arrive. If economic institutions such as open labor markets and a low safety net encourage the immigration of strivers, they and their children are unlikely to feel like resentful outsiders.” Posner – Becker Blog

When as matter of social policy a country like France says, come here and we’ll take care of you — your going to get a less than desirable group of people. If a country says, come here and you’ll have the freedom to succeed or to fail — it tends to attract better people.