Topic of the Week: Riots in France

Image: Le Monde

Keywords: France, 2005 French riots, Nicolas Sarkozy

Analysis:
"As the violence in France reached its tenth consecutive night, the torched car index reached 1,300, and the geography outside the control of the government radically increased, it has become clear that a classic riot over a lack of economic opportunity and justice has morphed into something else entirely."

"Open source war emerged spontaneously in France due to its particularly potent combination of criminal networks and Islamic extremism. The bonding of the two, the economic self-interest and techniques of criminal networks with the moral cohesion and antagonism of Islamic extremism, provided all the necessary preconditions (read more about Guerrilla Entrepreneurs). The spark that took this from a riot to open source war, was the attempt by the French Interior Minister (Sarkozy) to eliminate the parallel criminal economy (a type of primary loyalty energized by globalization) that provides the main means of economic advancement and status in many of these immigrant communities."
Source: Open Source War in France - Global Guerrillas

Pictures:
Paris erupts - BBC News
Violences Urbaines - Jean-Paul Ney

Special Report:
Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency - Strategic Studies Institute