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Houses Burning In France = Chirac Sez More Public Housing!
Once a statist, always a statist...PARIS --President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for run-down apartment buildings to be renovated and for more public housing to be built, a response to three blazes that killed 48 people in recent months, most of them African immigrants. Note from the article a day or so ago, one group tried to do their own electrical work. The latest fire, on Monday, killed seven Africans, including four children. One of the victims was a 6-year-old boy whose desperate mother threw him from a fifth-floor window. "Faced with this situation, we must act," Chirac said in comments relayed by government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope. "What's urgent is to ensure the safety of people living in precarious housing." 'So to resolve this situation, I propose more precarious housing!'
Housing Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said that funding for new housing for those evicted was not a problem. "Money is not an issue in this affair," he told France-Info radio. "We just have organization problems, problems with speed. This takes time and it's complex." Organization problems & problems with speed = non-market solutions. "It's out of the question to leave these people in a situation of vital risk," he said. Firefighters will install fire alarms in run-down buildings if needed, police said. You mean implementing 'Anglo-Saxon' solutions? Sacre Bleu!! The fire late Monday was around the corner from the Picasso Museum in the historic Marais district -- driving home the fact rundown housing exists even in Paris' higher-rent districts. Um, have you dorks ever considered building codes and inspections? The blaze started on the second floor of the building that was home to between 40 and 60 people from the Ivory Coast, about half of them in France illegally, police and city officials said. Fred, where's that replacement Surprise Meter? Police said they believed the blaze was accidental, noting numerous fire hazards. Residents had pirated electricity from a nearby building. Gas cylinders and mattresses cluttered the floors and had fueled the flames, police said. My question - where was the freakin' landlord, summering on the Riviera?
Why not fine the landlord & make him do the work? Oh, that's right, too 'Anglo-Saxon' of me. My bad... The building's previous owner, Joseph O'Dru, accused Paris authorities of failing to honor several court orders instructing them to help him remove squatters. I don't think that should relieve O'Dru's responsibility to a) fix things or b) turn off all utilities if they're squatters (probably of the unpaying variety). The deaths have cast light on the plight of France's growing immigrant populations and the precarious conditions in which an estimated 2 million people live in France. Then maybe you should consider reducing said population? Only days earlier, on Friday, another Paris fire killed 17 African immigrants, including 14 children. In that blaze, officials ruled out an electrical short circuit, and raised the possibility that the blaze was caused by human action, suggesting arson or an accident. In April, 24 people died in a fire at a budget hotel that housed African immigrants near Paris' old Opera house. Can't help but notice two common threads here... Posted by: someone using the name of John Kerry 2005-08-31 |
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