Many of the youths blame Mr Sarkozy for the continued violence, with what they consider to be highly provocative language.  He has pledged to "industrially clean" council estates and to rid them of "scum".

On Sunday night, he promised "zero tolerance" of suburban crime.  Two rioters have already received three-month jail sentences and a dozen more face charges.

"We're not dumb.  Sarkozy has declared war on suburban youth," said Karim, 23.  "Unless he apologizes for the way he has treated us, then he can expect 40 nights of violence," he said.

But others around the estate back Mr Sarkozy.  "What he says may be crude, but he's right.  Drug runners and petty criminals have had it good too long around here.  There's only so much social prevention you can do, then you have to repress," said Marie-Jeanne Sacré, a social worker.

In the neighbouring Bosquet estate, Traore Gounedi, a 27-year-old worker in a local social centre, is incensed.  "Ten years ago, Clichy was a real no-go area.  But in recent years we had built up sports clubs and other associations and it had become calm.

"The way Sarkozy has dealt with this, using riot police and terms the National Front would be proud of, has put the clock back 10 years. Once Ramadan ends on Friday, things will get worse."

Hurt pride shows as France sees world report riots


PARIS, Nov 8 (Reuters) - A barrage of critical world media reporting on the violence in its rundown suburbs is rubbing nerves raw in France, which is more used to hearing praise for its food, its countryside and its opposition to the Iraq war.

In tones ranging from outrage to rueful agreement, French media are now reporting daily on the harsh terms that foreign television stations and newspapers choose to describe the unrest among France's angry youths of Arab and African origin.

France laughed off "freedom fries" -- as French fries were renamed in Washington -- and other anti-French sentiment in the United States at the start of the Iraq war in 2003, but its reaction to the riot reporting carries a between-the-lines admission of hurt pride.

"From Italy to South Africa, Poland to China, from CNN to al-Jazeera, the newspaper headlines and television commentaries set against a background of blazing cars are really hyping it up," the popular daily Le Parisien complained.

The Foreign Ministry has criticised some foreign reports as excessive and at least one cabinet member, Labour Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, has hinted the critical reporting was meant to hit back at France for opposing the U.S.-led Iraq war.

French media have run hard-hitting reports on the riots, just as they have been very critical of social or racial problems abroad. But seeing equally tough reporting about their own country seems to have caught the French off guard.

Eric Raoult, mayor of the eastern Paris suburb of Raincy, did not like being at the receiving end of outside attention.

"Last night, Japanese television and Turkish television were in my city hall telling me what should be done. That hurts me," he said.

While reporting on the hard-hitting coverage in the United States media, one Paris radio station noted with relief a New York Times report saying the city centre was safe for tourists.

BAGHDAD ON THE SEINE

"Fire and blood in France -- at least that's what some foreign media claim is going on," Le Parisien wrote. "Paris is burning, civil war, war zone, race riots -- the headlines, especially on TV, often have no nuance."

The conservative Le Figaro was indignant about the way U.S. media reported from riot-hit areas such as Seine Saint Denis, the rundown area between the capital and its Charles de Gaulle airport to the north.

"American newspapers don't hesitate to compare Paris to Baghdad or Seine Saint Denis to the Gaza Strip and to call the crisis a 'Katrina of social disasters'," an editorial fumed in a reference to the recent hurricane.

Other commentators objected to the way foreign media stress the ethnic backgrounds of the rioters and the racial discrimination they complain about -- issues less prominent here because France officially does not recognise it has minority communities.

CNN, the U.S. satellite channel that Paris would like to launch a French-language channel to compete with, is watched especially carefully for anti-French nuances.

"CNN runs the headline 'French Violence' on its website like it had 'War in Iraq' during the American intervention," Le Monde noted disapprovingly.

The Nouvel Observateur weekly said CNN talked about possible civil war, curfews and deployment of troops -- without mentioning some French politicians were using the same terms.

Fox News, a leading outlet of anti-French sentiment after Paris opposed the Iraq war, was also held up for criticism for broadcasting headlines like "Paris Burning" over a picture of the Eiffel Tower before a wall of flames.

But the critics were not without self-criticism.

Le Figaro said the riots were "too good an opportunity to pass up, an opportunity to mock the country that claims to have invented human rights and that's always ready -- yes, it's true -- to lecture the rest of humanity."

Five questions non-Muslims would like answered
By Dennis Prager

THE RIOTING IN France by primarily Muslim youths and the hotel bombings in Jordan are the latest events to prompt sincere questions that law-abiding Muslims need to answer for Islam's sake, as well as for the sake of worried non-Muslims.

Here are five of them:

ADVERTISEMENT
(1) Why are you so quiet?

Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah.

There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror?

(2) Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?

If Israeli occupation is the reason for Muslim terror in Israel, why do no Christian Palestinians engage in terror? They are just as nationalistic and just as occupied as Muslim Palestinians.

(3) Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?

According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free" states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states. Why is this?

(4) Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?

Young girls in Indonesia were recently beheaded by Muslim murderers. Last year, Muslims — in the name of Islam — murdered hundreds of schoolchildren in Russia. While reciting Muslim prayers, Islamic terrorists take foreigners working to make Iraq free and slaughter them. Muslim daughters are murdered by their own families in the thousands in "honor killings." And the Muslim government in Iran has publicly called for the extermination of Israel.

(5) Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?

No church or synagogue is allowed in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban destroyed some of the greatest sculptures of the ancient world because they were Buddhist. Sudan's Islamic regime has murdered great numbers of Christians.

Instead of confronting these problems, too many of you deny them. Muslims call my radio show to tell me that even speaking of Muslim or Islamic terrorists is wrong. After all, they argue, Timothy McVeigh is never labeled a "Christian terrorist." As if McVeigh committed his terror as a churchgoing Christian and in the name of Christ, and as if there were Christian-based terror groups around the world.

As a member of the media for nearly 25 years, I have a long record of reaching out to Muslims. Muslim leaders have invited me to speak at major mosques. In addition, I have studied Arabic and Islam, have visited most Arab and many other Muslim countries and conducted interfaith dialogues with Muslims in the United Arab Emirates as well as in the U.S. Politically, I have supported creation of a Palestinian state and supported (mistakenly, I now believe) the Oslo accords.

Hundreds of millions of non-Muslims want honest answers to these questions, even if the only answer you offer is, "Yes, we have real problems in Islam." Such an acknowledgment is infinitely better — for you and for the world — than dismissing us as anti-Muslim.

We await your response.