Wampum

That's the word early this evening from Toulouse where a group of 30+ civilians and an undisclosed number of police were engaged in an exchange of gas grenades and diverse projectiles. For the first time the police are being engaged by, rather than engaging, the protesters.

Things are getting worse. Thirty CRS in combat dress, directed by the Departmental Director of Public Security, are deployed to provide cover for the fire crews. That's the Nicolas Sarkozy means, fire suppression supported by units trained with an emphasis on crowd control, non-lethal operations and Military Operation Urban Terrain Operations, tending towards ... MOUT Ops.

Next week will also see the obvious consequence of last week's decision by a court to rule a strike by communal transport workers in Marseilles illegal. The metallos will be out in force, and as the PCF has already called for the firing of Nicolas Sarkozy, the metal workers won't be taking the first opportunity to yeild to Sarkozy's troops in the streets. For the cheminots (transport workers), privitizations, harsher work rules, and the declining value of wages are the issues.

I think la crise des banlieues is a revolt of class, not race. Things are pretty grim in the bidonvilles that are France's 700+ ghettos, and its the recent residents, as well as the young and old of indifferent lengths of residence, who live there. Established "non-French" don't live with the poor, French and non-French, and these, Middle East/Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africans, are not the first line of des banlieueaires against a state that is contracting social welfare, and social justice.

Next week could be even warmer, and the 19th is the date the CGT plans to ... invest Paris.