Everything is not that rosy in France as the war in Iraq has created

[dArKeR]

(A French friend's report from France.)

Everything is not that rosy in France as the war in Iraq has created a deep distrust in between french jews (half a million individuals) and french muslims (five millions individuals).

French jews tend to identify themselves with Israel. Many of their intellectuals and self proclaimed community leaders supported the invasion of Iraq.

French muslims support the palestinians. Bin Laden is considered a bit like "Robin Hood" among young french muslims as he dared to take upon Israel's big brother : the US.  They see the war against Iraq as a proxy war fought by the US on behalf of Israel against the muslim world.
 


The fact that those two groups like to relate themselves to outsiders reveals that there is something broken or rotten in the french society which many believe has been infected by the virus of "communautarism"!     

"Regular" french view the french jews as culturally closer to them (they are fully assimilated) than french muslims

but no french sees Israel in a friendly way. At least it is believed palestinians should have the right to have their own state.

The only country that could solve this problem would be the US : by cutting its financial support to Israel, the israelis would be forced to negociate with the palestinians. But the pro israelis lobbies are just too influent in US politics. It will never happen...

+++++++++

Here is his second email which is more general:

I went back to France from Mid July to Mid August (Eva Air now operates a regular non stop transiberian flight that puts Paris only 13 hours away from Taipei).

I did some sailing boat and kite surfing. Kite surfing is great but difficult to learn. It would be also hard to find a proper spot vwhere to train in Taiwan... Something did strike me during my vacations : the storms and thunders are getting more and more violent each year. One of the britany island I sailed to (Houat Island 20 miles away from the port of Vannes - South Coast of britany) was completely devastated by a mini typhoon 15 days after my visit (8 boats sunk in its harbour - one tourist was killed). The weather reports said it was a "remnant" of the hurricane that stroke Florida...How could it cross the whole North Atlantic? in 2001, Bush did "unwrite" the Kyoto treaty saying it was bad for the U.S economy...Is global warming better?

Paris is full of south korean, chinese and russian visitors that have replaced american tourists since the invasion of Iraq. Russian tourist in France prove to be extremely generous spenders (on average a russian tourist spends 1500-1600 Euros or 1800-1950 USD per day during a 10-15 days stay). Every tourist spots must have leaflets in chinese. Until two years ago, the only asian language printed on those leaflets was japanese! Things are changing quickly!  

[skooooo]

1. Bush the great uniter

[Maple]

2. Well I'm sure

insisting on the removal of hijabs and so on didn't help matters.

[number6]

3. kick

..