Twenty North African Youth Raid a Train in France

Washington Times

A gang of more than 20 youths -- thought to be North African immigrants -- terrorized hundreds of train passengers in a rampage of violence, robbery and sexual assault on New Year's Day, French officials said yesterday. The five-hour-long criminal frenzy was "totally unacceptable," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters. "Those guilty will be found and punished, as they deserve."


The gang of between 20 and 30 youths boarded the train, heading from Nice on the French Riviera to Lyon, in eastern France, early on Jan. 1, as it carried 600 passengers home from New Year's Eve partying overnight. Once inside, they went wild, forcing passengers to hand over mobile phones and wallets, and slashing seats and breaking windows. A 20-year-old woman cornered by several of the marauders was sexually molested. "It was a real scene of pillage on the train," said the regional state prosecutor, Dominique Luigi, adding that the passengers were in a state of "panic."


Train staff alerted police, and the train pulled into a station to wait. The three officers who initially turned up later were joined by reinforcements. A waitress in a bar near the station said two young women from the train had come inside in tears. "They told me there had been groping. They talked about sexual assaults. They were really traumatized," she said. MORE

This couldn't happen at a worse time. Already, xenophobia is running rampant in France and all over Europe. Civil liberties have disappeared in a dozen states all over the continent in the interest of "security". EU, the world's examples of restraint since American became hegemonic, is challenged in the way it has seldom responded well in history. Remember the Jewish pogroms in past centuries? They were not just Russian. And then there is the holocaust. Legislation all over Europe has limited immigration, even though it is needed for future economic growth. Anti-immigration movements grow daily.
Civilization needs time to integrate deep learning available in disaster. There has been too little time since the French riots to for the French to learn from their mistakes.
Hat tip to Kira Zalan.