Thread: French rioting blamed on polygamy

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/inter ... nted=print


November 17, 2005
Citing of Polygamy as a Cause of French Riots Causes Uproar
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
PARIS, Nov. 17 - In the search for explanations for the riots that have rocked France, some politicians and intellectuals are pointing to a novel one: polygamy.

The head of President Jacques Chirac's UMP party in the national assembly, Bernard Accoyer, called polygamy "certainly one of the causes, though not the only one" for France's worst urban unrest in four decades.

Speaking in an interview with RTL radio on Wednesday, he blamed the Socialist government of the former prime minister, Lionel Jospin - in power from 1997 until 2002 - for being "strangely lax" in not enforcing the law banning the practice.

More dramatic were the comments by Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, one of the country's most eminent historians and the permanent secretary of the Académie Française.

Referring to the problem of African immigrants in France, she told Russian television in Moscow on Sunday, "Everyone is astonished: Why are African children in the streets and not at school? Why can't their parents buy an apartment? It's clear why. Many of these Africans, I tell you, are polygamous. In an apartment, there are three or four wives and 25 children."

Ms. Carrere d'Encausse added, "One understands why these children are in the streets."

Even the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has suggested that polygamy makes it more difficult for North African Arabs and sub-Saharan Africans to integrate into French life, although he stopped short of linking polygamy to the recent violence.

"There are more problems for a child of an immigrant of black Africa or of North Africa than for a son of a Swede, a Dane or a Hungarian," said Mr. Sarkozy, himself the son of a Hungarian. "Because culture, because polygamy, because social origins contribute to more hardships for him."

Another government official, Gérard Larcher, the junior employment minister, said in an interview published in The Financial Times on Wednesday that polygamous families produced "anti-social behavior," although he added that unemployment was a more important cause of the violence.

The remarks have sparked an uproar in France, and angry charges of racism.

In a statement on Wednesday, MRAP, an antiracist group, accused "political leaders on the right" of "playing an extremely dangerous role in feeding our country with the racism that causes the damage we know." It added, "These accusations shame the nation and are not acceptable from the responsible representatives of the Republic."

MRAP is contemplating legal action against those who made the accusations.

There are no official figures for how many polygamous families live in France, although a number of women's rights groups estimate the number as high as 30,000. The families are mostly from Mali, Senegal and Gambia.

Polygamy has been officially illegal in France since 1993, but is largely tolerated if the marriages took place before the family emigrated to the country.

Le Monde put the story of the political uproar on the front page of its edition that appeared this afternoon.

An editorial in today's northern French newspaper, Le Courrier Picard, said, "Then like this, it's because Papa is polygamous that the son burns cars." It added that such statements amount to "a call for a new and hypocritical apartheid." The reasons: they scapegoat a small percentage of the population and they do not say that even though polygamy is illegal, it is tolerated because the state makes welfare payments to such families.

In an effort to calm the waters, a spokesman for Mr. Chirac's government, Jean-François Copé, sought to distance the leadership from the accusations linking polygamy and the unrest.

"You cannot draw such a tight link between polygamy and urban violence," Mr. Copé said in an RMC Info radio interview today. "The crisis of disadvantaged neighborhoods has multiple causes. Polygamy, it's first and foremost the problem of families who are in cramped housing, with, of course, very important risks of things getting out of hand."

Community organizations acknowledge there is a problem of polygamous families, but said the root problem of the recent violence is a much deeper societal one.

"A culprit has to be found," said Claudette Bodin, co-president of Afrique Partenaires Services, a support group for families from sub-Saharan countries living in France. In a telephone interview, she said, "It's easier to accuse polygamous families than to question your own society."

"It's not the kids from polygamous families who are setting the suburbs on fire," Ms, Bodin added, "not more so than other kids from other families." A much larger issue, she said, was the lack of proper education both for the children and their parents.

"There is a problem with education now, because there have been no programs towards those families, because there are 15 kids in three bedrooms," Ms. Bodin said. "How do you want to deal with that?"

Daniel Vaillant, an interior minister under Mr. Jospin, also said that the problem was much larger. "You cannot say that polygamy created or aggravated the riots," he said in a telephone interview. "This is transferring the blame. It's a total exaggeration."

"Maybe some kids of these polygamous families were among the rioters," he added. "I want to know among all those kids arrested how many of them are really kids from polygamous families."

The root problems, Mr. Vaillant said, were "those of jobs, of housing, of bitterness."

Ariane Bernard and Hélène Fouquet contributed reporting for this article.






...gee. I thought it was about something else like a FAILED IMMIGRATION POLICY.

Originally Posted by arizona85032

"A culprit has to be found,"

I'm sure if the think about it real real hard they might figure it out.

"There is a problem with education now, because there have been no programs towards those families, because there are 15 kids in three bedrooms," Ms. Bodin said. "How do you want to deal with that?"

Quote:

"How do you want to deal with that?"

Close your friggin borders, get these people who can't abide by your laws out of your country and let them take the offspring with them.

France owes these people nothing if they migrated into France illegally.

Developed countries like France, like the US are being sucked down into the Third World, destroying every advancement that our civilizations have made as nations.

You are no stronger than your weakest link. This applies to business, this applies to politics, and this applies to culture. A man who wants more than one wife can go back to whatever country he came from, have as many wives and kids as he wants and be responsible for them all.

PERIOD!!

France owes these people nothing.

The rest of the world better Wake Up including the United States which has a far bigger problem in the area of different cultures, different standards, different concepts of right and wrong brewing right now at 210 degrees. This country is 2 degrees away from what happened in France as is every other developed country that has let the Globalists infest their government and allow illegal and unsustainable migration into their nation placing people within their country that they do not need and do not want and will not sustain.....because they CAN'T.

It's economic, political, and cultural SUICIDE!

Right on, Judy BABY! Polygamy is to blame this time? Bullsmit. There are Mormon sects which still practice polygamy and they have zero crime.

You cannot dump multitudes of Third World people who have a complete contempt for education and technology into a Western European nation which is all about education and technology and not expect some pretty hellish results.

I recall reading some study years ago where a sociologist polled the education levels of the rioters arrested in the 90's LA riots. The average grade completion level was 6th grade.

Why do analysts make these things so complicated?

I had some customers from Sierra Leone recently. The middle aged male was espousing the virtues of polygamy while I was talking to him. He said here in America, he could make a decision without speaking to his wife, but now he had to discuss things with her so he was not god so to speak. But he went on and on about how it was good to have 3 wives, and very young ones in their teens at that......
He also mentioned that while he was in Sierra Leone for business, the American embassy went out of their way to see that he was ok, and even provided food for those who were there on business, kind of like an open bar. America has taken a liking to that little country it seems.