>> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>>
>>> That is perhaps because all right wingers are now having an orgy of
>>> France bashing. I am monitoring the readers opinions posted to BBC
>>> and Yahoo/Reuters news - virtually every comment posted by a US-ser
>>> is gloating about the French riots followed by real nasty comments
>>> about the French concluding that they got what they deserved
>>> because they did not support "us" in Iraq.
>
>
> geez. I just glanced through the corresponding news.yahoo forum with
> the
> France stories, and it is really bad. When I looked, most of the
> threads
> seemed to concern preparations for an imminent domestic race riot,
> where
> many seem to think that muslims will be trying to lay roadside bombs
> and
> forcibly convert them, and how they are stocking up to prevent this,
> and a
> latino uprising is the second possibility they suspect. These aren't
> particularly bad sample postings below either - half of them run
> along this
> line.
>
The Sacramento Bee (AP) tries to keep things prioritized: [Someone has to...]
Riots not *yet* hurting tourism in France [em mine//lcm] By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer Published 11:27 am PST Monday, November 7, 2005
http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/world/story/2877665p-11539792c.html <...> Still, the nation's tourism minister, in an interview Monday with The Associated Press, said he felt that the international media was exaggerating the violence.
"You get the impression that France is awash with flames and blood, which is not at all the case," said the minister, Leon Bertrand.
"You cannot deny the images, but there are images and images."
The issue is crucial for France because tourism is a vital sector of the economy, contributing nearly 7 percent of gross domestic product and sustaining, either directly or indirectly, 2 million jobs, Bertrand said. France welcomed 75 million tourists in 2004, a boost for a country struggling with nearly 10 percent unemployment and sluggish growth. <...>
That's what they get for eating snails... and having an Eiffel tower!
Leigh www.leighm.net