	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

\| HOME \| WEB LOG \| COUNTRY WIKI \| COMMENT \| FORUM \| DOWNLOADS \| ABOUT \|

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 2-Nov-05
France's Nicolas Sarkozy says "Let them eat cake!"

Web Log - November, 2005

France's Nicolas Sarkozy says "Let them eat cake!"

There's been violent racial rioting in Paris's Muslim ghetto suburbs every night since Thursday, and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is being blamed.

Angry youths have been rioting, torching cars and buildings, and confronting police for the last six consecutive nights. The situation is the same as in England, Holland, and other European countries that have experienced Muslim violence -- the youths are second and third generation Moroccans, Turks and Arabs whose parents and grandparents came to France in the 1960s and 1970s, seeking a better life.

However, unemployment and poverty have been particularly harsh to Muslim minorities, and Muslims have suffered from bias and discrimination. As always happens, generational changes bring social changes. Youths with no memory of their native countries come of age and become infuriated by the discrimination.

The violence in France began on Thursday by an accident that electrocuted two Muslim teenagers at an electricity sub-station while they were apparently fleeing the police. This triggered violence by youth gangs in several suburbs.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is being blamed. <font size=-2>(Source: BBC)</font>

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is being blamed. (Source: BBC)

Interior Minister Sarkozy responded by saying he had a "zero tolerance policy" for violence. He referred to the troublemakers as "scum" and "riffraff," and vowed to "clean out" the suburbs.

Born in 1955, Sarkozy is in the arrogant, narcissistic Boomer generation, and lacks the finesse and ability to compromise of the French President Jacques Chirac, born in 1932 and in the Silent Generation. Sarkozy has been considered a rising star in French politics, and even wants to align France's policies more closely with America's. However, this incident is certain to polarize public opinion, and Sarkozy is being blamed for inflaming the situation.

Sarkozy's main political opponent is French Prime Minister Dominque de Villepin, born in 1953, also in the Boomer generation. You may recall that de Villepin is the sleazebag who screwed and double-crossed American Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2003, during the preliminaries to the Iraq war.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the growing fault lines between the French and Muslim immigrants and their children are being repeated throughout Europe, just as there was a fault line between Christians and Jews in Germany during World War II. And just as England and France have had repeated wars for at least a millennium, Generational Dynamics predicts a new West European war, and the growing fault line between the French and the English indicates that there'll be a new war between those two countries.

As we indicated in our analysis of the French rejection of the EU constitution, exit polls show clearly that the differences are generational, with younger generations increasingly opposed to an EU.

As in other cases, Generational Dynamics tells you your final destination, but now how you'll get there, so there's no way to predict the sequence of events that will lead to the next West European crisis war. On this web site, I've stated that one likely scenario is that in a Mideast war, the French will side with the Palestinians and the British and Americans will side with Israel. Other countries around the world would be forced into a war on one side or the other.

One barometer of that sequence of events is the relative success of the political opponents Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominque de Villepin. The fact that de Villepin is so anti-American would appear to make him the more likely to lead France in a war against an Anglo-American alliance, especially if he's able to serve as a peacemaker with the French Muslims. However, Sarkozy's "law and order" stance may be very popular with the French people, and Sarkozy could undoubted flip to anti-Americanism in a minute, if it suited his purpose.

So Sarkozy and de Villepin are the two men to be watching to get an idea of how things will unfold in Western Europe in the next year or two. (2-Nov-05) Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Web Log Pages

Current Web Log

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 2-Nov-05 France's Nicolas Sarkozy says "Let them eat cake!"

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 2-Nov-05
France's Nicolas Sarkozy says "Let them eat cake!"