AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France Nov 3, 2005 — Rampaging youths shot at police and firefighters Thursday after burning car dealerships and public buses and hurling rocks at commuter trains, as eight days of riots over poor conditions in Paris-area housing projects spread to 20 towns.

Youths ignored an appeal for calm from President Jacques Chirac, whose government worked feverishly to fend off a political crisis amid criticism that it has ignored problems in neighborhoods heavily populated by first- and second-generation North African and Muslim immigrants.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a string of emergency meetings with Cabinet ministers throughout the day. He told the Senate the government "will not give in" to violence in the troubled suburbs.

"Order and justice will be the final word in our country," Villepin said. "The return to calm and the restoration of public order are the priority our absolute priority."

The riots started last Thursday after the electrocution deaths of two teenagers who ran from a soccer game and hid in a power station in the northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after they saw police enter the area. Youths in the neighborhood said police chased the boys to their death.

You know, ever since our President started talking about invading Iraq we've been told that the war would stir up Muslim dissent against America. We were told that our fight against terrorism in Iraq would make Muslims hate us and that we'd pay a price because of it. Yet now, for the last week or so, France has been dealing with an Islamic community that has exploded thanks to what sounds like the accidental electrocution of two juvenile delinquents.

France has been a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq and a frequent critic of America's lack of so-called "multiculturalism."

So who has it right? The country that has taken a strong stand against Islamic terrorism and dhimmitude or the country that has gone out of it's way to appease Muslims?