Sarko s'en va-t-en guerre

Last weekend the big news was Grenoble. I would like to spend this weekend updating that story, first with commentary from Agoravox:

A dispatch from AFP on July 21 announced: "A return to calm seemed evident in the district of La Villeneuve in Grenoble, subject recently to an eruption of violence. For the second consecutive night, no noteworthy incident was reported (...)

Six cars and one scooter were burned - "a perfectly normal night for this neighborhood", added a police spokesman.

Disgusting. Six cars and one scooter burned is, for our police, a "perfectly normal" night in some neighborhoods. Drive around, there's nothing going on... Everything is OK.

In France, citizens of the "second zone" (i.e., second class citizens) shouldn't complain if their car is burned during the night, it's a "normal" situation. Learn to live with it. If you move to La Villneuve, be advised that your car will most likely be torched one day. That's how it is. It's part of the contract.

The area is still very tense, as the graffiti discovered in a Grenoble suburb can attest: "a good cop is a dead cop", "one cop = one bullet". These words were on the walls of the building that houses the municipal police of Sassenage, in the department of Isère. The prefect Albert Dupuy decided to file a complaint... just before learning that he had been relieved of his duties by Nicolas Sarkozy.

The President, in fact, is replacing Albert Dupuy with Eric Le Douaron, a career police officer and current prefect of the department of the Meuse. His objective: to wage a veritable "war" against crime. A line we already heard... years ago... out of the mouth of the same Nicolas Sarkozy.

Le Monde, a paper not known for being critical of the government, has published an article that recapitulates some of the "wars" Sarkozy has been waging for eight years, both as Interior Minister and as President:

When he became Interior Minister he presented himself as a warrior. On June 27, 2002, addressing 2000 police officers he said:

"We must and we shall reverse the trend. We must and we shall bring down the crime rate. We will win the war against crime."

In October of the same year he visited a neighborhood of Strasbourg where cars had been burned, and announced forceful measures with supplementary police: "to seek out the criminals wherever they are, for we must wage war on them."

In February 2003, testifying before the Senate committee on illegal drugs, Sarkozy repeated:

"It is clear that when it comes to drug use among our citizens, we must prosecute a war against the dealers."

In July 2003, he also "declared war" against speeding truck drivers.

Once elected President, he enlarged his battlefield. In February 2008 he promised:

"Beginning tomorrow, we will wage a merciless war against drug trafficking and dealers, and I will assume complete responsibility for the conditions in which it is implemented and the monitoring of the results."

The following year, the battle goes on. While visiting Seine-Saint-Denis in March 2009, Sarkozy declared "war on violent gangs", promising that "the gangs will not be victorious over the Republic."

In September 2009, changing his territory, Nicolas Sarkozy declared his intention to wage a "merciless war against school dropouts."

But the mother of all wars, the war against crime, knows no truce. In a speech honoring Aurélie Fouquet, the policewoman killed in the line of duty in Villiers-sur-Marne, on May 26, 2010, the President repeated:

"France is engaged in a merciless war against crime."

A war that has lasted for eight years, and shows no signs of stopping.

The title of the post is based on a famous French children's song - Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre (Malbrough goes off to war). The tune is one we all know - For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.

At top, Sarkozy examines a weapon seized last November in the suburb of Bobigny.

The photo below shows the GIPN (Intervention Group of the National Police), a special unit of the French national police, created in 1972, that operates regionally and constitutes a highly skilled elite force, rigorously trained to deal with extreme violence and ready for action 24/7/365.

The GIPN and RAID (Seek, Assist, Intervene, Dissuade), another elite force, were both called in during the Grenoble violence.