Violence in Spain and France
Andorra; Barcelona, Spain; Toulouse, France and the Pyrenees Prepare
Spanish separatists along with French xenophobes continue violence against civilians and immigrants. Terrorism and religious intolerance reappear in Spain and France.
On Friday March 7th 2008, Spanish separatists from the Basque Country of Northwest Spain assassinated local politician Isaias Carrasco. 27 days later, according to an AFP article on April 6th 2008, “vandals desecrated 148 Muslim graves in France's biggest war cemetery….” Unrest in the Old European powerhouse nations, while removed from the World’s front pages, is very much alive and thriving.
Spain: has seen a recent surge in terrorist activity that is spreading from the political realm to the civilian population. The militant Basque separatist group Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) has launched new offensives against political leaders that are affecting the civilian population. CNN Europe quoted an AP report on March 21st that during a Good Friday procession, ETA set off a car bomb in the Spanish town of Calahorra. According to DPA on March 22nd 8 civilians were injured in the blast and “[civilian] panic struck the area after the explosion.”
This follows the February 23rd bombing near Bilbao, the Feb 29th bombing of the office of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Party in Derio and March 7th’s assassination of politician Isaias Carrasco.
While contained in the Northern Basque region, Spanish fears are that it will spread through the neighboring regions. As recently reported the city of Barcelona in neighboring Catalonia has been on high alert. With the elections over and the unexpected relatively poor showing in both regions, it is difficult to forecast what actions will now be taken by the separatist’s movement.
France: is experiencing the opposite problem, immigration not separation. With its neighbors to the Southwest struggling to maintain peace over separation terrorists, France is fighting a backlash caused by years of liberal immigration laws and the corresponding numbers of immigrants.
French racist began using tactics that are dividing the nation over these policies. The focal groups, and the largest majority of the immigrants, originate from African nations with Islamic backgrounds. According to the AFP article, “France's Muslim community is Europe's largest at around five million.” In an April 9th article in The New York Times, reporter Elaine Sciolino quotes Radio Gazelle director Mustapha Zergour: “We are no longer a France of baguettes and berets, but a France of 'Allah-u akbar' and mosques.”
With the violent riots of 2005 fresh in the nation’s mind, renewed fears, by all citizens, of immigrant violence and racial attacks has resurfaced. France’s economy is taking a down turn, French President Nicholas Sarkozy has an all time low approval rating around 38% but French approval of immigration reforms remains extremely high. In the report Immigration Policy in France, by Virginie Guiraudon of the National Center for Scientific Research the relation between a failing economy and immigration sentiments produces a xenophobia (and it close relative Islamophobia) as an ignition source for racial unrest and a repeat of French violence. “…economic downturns…have meant that French employers have not needed legal foreign labor, while high unemployment has fed xenophobic sentiments in public opinion and in populist rhetoric.” An anti-racism group said, in the AFP article, that the March 6th 2008 attack on Muslim graves was 'a worrying sign of an ill that is gaining ground with a degree of impunity….”
Meanwhile the Time’s Sciolino said: “While the scale of the [immigrant] unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it…more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police.”
Andorra and the Pyrenees: The tiny principality of Andorra snuggled comfortably within the Pyrenees mountain range between Spain and France, separates and unites two major problems of Southwest Europe – terrorism and immigration. The question arises, will this be sufficient?
