Pieter, thanks for posting the videos. Now, mass media would go frenzy against muslim immigrants, in spite that the majority of them are in Germany, not France.
Pieter, how to explain such high level of tension between muslims and non-muslims in France, compared to other countries?
French soldiers deployed in Paris
Police officers secure the Stade de France stadium during the international friendly soccer France against Germany, Friday, Nov.
French soldiers mobilize near to the Place de la Bastille in Paris Friday. You are welcome Jaga. There is constant media coverage of Paris on the Dutch national broadcast chanal
NOS, and on the various European media. It was a confusing situation. How many dead and wounded? Where did the attacks took place. Paris already had the presence of the army and special forces next to the police. I just hear that in a subburb of Paris there was an armed conflict going on. You have large Muslim migrant getto's in the periphery of Paris, called banlieues.
Paris has a lot of banlieues like Bobigny, Clichy-sous-Bois, Saint-Denis, Puteaux, Nanterre, Courbevoie, Rosny-sous-Bois, Montreuil, Créteil, Villiers-sur-Marne, Ivry-sur-Seine, Vitry-sur-Seine and Antony. Belgium took strict safety measures, called on it's citizens not to travel to Paris, and two Belgian citizens are amongst the dead in Paris. There are strict border controls between Belgium and France. Now I am writing this I am listening to a national press conference with the Dutch prime minister.
He says on moments like this our connection with France is stronger than ever. We are connected in our values and heritage. We are in direct contact with our neighbours and with the European institutions. On a high level there is contact between the government, secret services, the national coordinator of terror fighting, and other institutions. The security measures of our borders, train stations and airports are levelled up. THis is about our way lof living. We are dealing with terrorists who want to separate us. Our values and legal system are stronger than violence and terrorism. We have to awake and alert. Together we stand strong and we are resilient. It is to much and to long to translate everything.
Mass media over here do not go frenzy against muslim immigrants, the quality press shows some restraint and realism in their reports. They write or report about what is actually happening. I didn't read or heard anything against Islam or Muslims. I only saw one French Muslims migrant (seen his Maghreb, Berber looks), who spoke about his sadness, fear and anger about what had happened. This is bad for Muslim migrants and for refugees. I heard about a burning refugee camp in Calais. Huge fires there.
I explain such high level of tension between muslims and non-muslims in
France, because
France has a lot of Muslim migrants, and due to the French colonial past in
Northern-Africa, the Middle-East (
Lebanon and
Syria) and black African Muslim countries. France has the heritage of
the Algerian War of Independence (1 November 1954 – 19 March 1962) compared to other countries? In France you always had a far right core with roots in collaborationalist Vichy France (during the Second World War), a also rightwing resistance fighters (who were the core of the old
Front National of
Jean-Marie Le Pen), and the growing new
Front National of
Marine Le Pen.
The Parti Socialiste of
President Hollande also moved to the right with the French prime minister
Manuel Valls (representative of the right wing of the French Socialist party, Parti Socialiste). And ofcourse former President
Nicolas Sarkozy who had a tough stance on immigration and Muslim immigrants. There is a traditional French xenophobia, racism and discrimination of minorities. But in general French are tolerant, open and cultured people who understand diversity.
There is ofcourse a difference between the French, Native European, Roman-Catholics, Calvinist christians and the secular-humanist French on one side, and the Muslim migrants with their Arab, Berber, African and other Muslim migrant cultures. But decades of coexistance also have lead to some sort of understanding, coexistence, acceptance and the multi-cultural diversity of France. You have huge Muslim and Jewish communities in France, but despite that fact there have been few incidents, accept the large terror attacks.
Islam in FranceIslam is the second-most widely professed religion in France behind Catholic Christianity by number of worshippers. With an estimated total of 5 to 10 percent of the national population, France has the largest number of Muslims in Western Europe.
The majority of Muslims in France belong to the Sunni denomination. However, Wahhabism has recently become the dominant component of French Muslim community and its growth is primarily fueled by funding from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The vast majority of French Muslims are of immigrant origin, while an estimated 100,000 are converts to Islam of indigenous ethnic French background.
France is a country that consists of the following ethnic groups; Celtic and Latin with Teutonic, Slavic, North African, Indochinese, Basque minorities.
Religions:Christian (overwhelmingly Roman Catholic) 63-66%, Muslim 7-9%, Jewish .5-.75%, Buddhist .5-.75%, other .5-1.0%, none 23-28%
France maintains a tradition of secularism and has not officially collected data on religious affiliation since the 1872 national census, which complicates assessments of France's religious composition; an 1872 law prohibiting state authorities from collecting data on individuals' ethnicity or religious beliefs was reaffirmed by a 1978 law emphasizing the prohibition of the collection or exploitation of personal data revealing an individual's race, ethnicity, or political, philosophical, or religious opinions; a 1905 law codified France's separation of Church and State (2015 est.)
Source: Wikipedia and CIA Factbook
fox8.com/2015/11/13/several-dead-in-shootout-and-explosion-in-paris/
