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| Europe |
| Bus drivers in ParisÂ’s |
| 2006-11-10 |
| The first thing driver Sacha Ristet does upon entering his bus is raise the partition that separates him from his passengers. Ristet works in Seine-Saint-Denis, a depressed region north of Paris that was the epicenter of three weeks of fiery riots that shook France last year. More recently, a spate of bus burnings by disaffected youths have plagued the area — home to many Muslim immigrants from France’s former colonies in Africa and their French-born children. “Tempers out here are at the boiling point,” said Ristet, whose route takes him through the town of Le Blanc Mesnil, where marauding teens torched two buses last month. “Things could explode at any moment.” So it’s with a knot in his stomach that the 41-year-old driver gets behind the wheel, fearing his bus could be next. Ristet, an immigrant from the former Yugoslavia, considers himself lucky. In his 12 years with Paris’ public transit authority, he’s never been injured — despite having been spit on, pelted with rocks and even shot at while on the job. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #10 Anonymous5089 forgets about junior criminals who get caught and released ten or twenty times before they are considered hardened enough to be punished. Then they get... a suspended sentence. In the meantime French limousine liberals pontificate about the need to "uncrowd" the jails ie liberate prisonners before they fulfill theier entire sentence. Nobody talks about the two alternative methods for uncrowding prisons: build more or, Stalin's patented method at uncrowding. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-11-10 11:14 |
| #9 but somebody has to do it! Yes, Yugoslavians. Surely not the evolved ecole graduates. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-11-10 09:20 |
| #8 Driving a bus through a |
| Posted by: Lancasters Over Dresden 2006-11-10 08:56 |
| #7 Sounds like the Muslims are starting to feel their oats and assert their "proper" place in Europe. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-11-10 08:35 |
| #6 Trying to enforce the rules — like making people pay for the ride — is the quickest way to find yourself in the hospital Locally, in London, muslim youths (Somalis) have started this tactic. I was party to an incident the other day where two somalis were chased off a bus by the driver and assorted passengers because they had refused to pay and threatened the driver. Another somali on the bus who sprang to their defence was almost lynched. These twats piss me off - but at least they're uniting the rest of society against them in the process. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2006-11-10 08:06 |
| #5 WTF?? What a worthless attitude. Lemme see... after the early 2006 CPE debacle, you have our Dear Leader saying the "law will be passed, but not applied"... recently, you have 70 rioters arrested by the police and released by the commissioner (préfet, not sure that's the exact term) so not to "worsen the situation", you have a warranted drug search prevented from being done by a judge for the very same reason... More generally, you've got about 50% of convicted felons who NEVER serve their time, because they hide in plain sight in the 'hoods, and police can't/won't go after them... you've got 800-1000 (depending on how you count) "no go areas" where the State cannot go into without a major show of force and/or a raid-type tactic (going there discreetly early in the morning, while the Youths ares till sleeping off their night of fun)... There's a rampant non-enforcement of simple collective rules, for fear of violence... non-payment of bus or train ticket is a given, as described above... driving license test results are now mailed in several french regions, because when the inspector told a negative result to a Youth, he endangered himself (anyway, threats are enough to have the license given anyway)... fines of any sort are never paid by the Youths, because there's no will in making them pay, be it for traffic violations (they don't respect rules there either, there are millions of people driving underage or without license... response from the gvt was to suggest to subsidize driving license fees for the Youths from the 'hood) or as compensation for victims,... You get the point. There's a general meltdown of french society, and of the State authority (except against law-abiding citizens, of course!). And since the State has literally phagocyted France, the Republic having killed and replaced the Nation, that means there's a meltdown of France too. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-11-10 08:01 |
| #4 The first thing driver Sacha Ristet does upon entering his bus is raise the partition that separates him from his passengers. I ride the bus to work most days. When I get on the bus, I walk right by the bus driver; no partition, no need to provide them with any protection. The same buses are used in what the French press would no doubt term Cincinnati's "riot-scarred" Over-the-Rhine; I've heard that the cameras on the buses actually provide an incredible amount of coverage and evidence in solving crimes. I can't remember [b]ever[/b] hearing about a Cincinnati bus being attacked. And the Europeans have the gall (heh) to sneer at the US as "violent"? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2006-11-10 07:58 |
| #3 #2 A single male |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2006-11-10 07:44 |
| #2 A single male on French welfare receives over $1000 per month, in addition to free prescriptions, medical care and access to subsidized housing. Many North Africans - Muslims - supplement this state largesse, by peddling drugs or stolen goods. There is no incentive to work, and an ideology that incites war. And the Socialists chose to throw more money at this mess. Did I mention that welfare assistance is inter-generational in France? And that recipients routinely have 4 or more children of Allah? This is a recipe for social explosion. |
| Posted by: Sneaze Shaiting3550 2006-11-10 06:00 |
| #1 “Trying to enforce the rules — like making people pay for the ride — is the quickest way to find yourself in the hospital” WTF?? What a worthless attitude. |
| Posted by: beer_me 2006-11-10 03:52 |