The Redhunter

As the interior ministry said that nearly 2,500 officers had been wounded this year, a police union declared that its members were "in a state of civil war" with Muslims in the most depressed "banlieue" estates which are heavily populated by unemployed youths of north African origin.

It said the situation was so grave that it had asked the government to provide police with armoured cars to protect officers in the estates, which are becoming no-go zones.
...
Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the hardline Action Police trade union, has written to Mr Sarkozy warning of an "intifada" on the estates and demanding that officers be given armoured cars in the most dangerous areas.

He said yesterday: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."

He added: "We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles."

However, Gerard Demarcq, of the largest police unions, Alliance, dismissed talk of an "intifada" as representing the views of only a minority.

Minority view or no, the fact that an average of 14 police officers per day are being hurt, and that they need armored vehicles and water cannon is alarming.

If it weren't for the widespread riots by Muslim "youths" in France last October and November, in which some 10,000 cars were burned and thousands arrested, it might be tempting to think that the Telegraph was exaggerating. As it is, we should take it seriously and be very worried about the future of Europe.

In Denial

As this post at RealClearPolitics makes clear, the foreign policy elite are deeply in denial.

The post cites an article in Foreign Affairs, titled "France and its Muslims", by Stéphanie Giry

According to Giry

Some French and foreign observers have interpreted last November's riots in poor, largely Muslim neighborhoods throughout the country as a skirmish in a broader clash of civilizations. Yet the strife had little to do with yearnings for a worldwide caliphate and much to do with domestic socioeconomic problems. ...

The status of Muslims in France is at once much healthier and more problematic than most recent commentary lets on.

According to RealClearPolitics, Foreign Affairs summarized the article thusly

"The recent panic over the rise of Islamic extremism in Europe has overlooked a key fact: the majority of European Muslims are trying hard to fit in, not opt out. This is especially clear in France, where the picture is much brighter than often acknowledged. Unfortunately, cynical politicians and the clumsy elite are now making matters much worse."

In other words, if we ignore the problem of Muslim extremism it will go away. This is just what Melanie Phillips warns against in Londonistan and on her blog every day.

The author of the post on RealClearPolitics, David Warren, sums up the contradition between the Telegraph and Foreign Affairs articles

There are two ways to reconcile these two articles. One is to assume that the Telegraph dispatch, confirmed by several sources in France, was made up from whole cloth. The other is to assume that the Foreign Affairs writer, even though she has a law degree from Yale, is writing nonsense.

She's writing nonsense.

The Difference with Muslims

There are going to be those, especially in the United States, who will dismiss me as a nativist. "People are always afraid of immigrants", "You just don't like them because they're different", "You're blowing this out of proportion. I'm sure there were disturbances by Italians/Irish/German/Chinese/Japanese immigrants in the United States in the 19th century and early 20th" and of course, the comparison to our problem with illegal aliens ("undocumented immigrants" as the left calls them).

As a student of history I am reasonably well informed about my country's history with immigrants. But there are two big difference with these immigrants and the Muslims

1) The Muslims come from cultures that have not gone through or been influenced by the Renaissance, Reformation, or Enlightenment. The Muslims have a largely Medieval mindset and there is no getting around it.

2) There are far too many Muslim extremists among the immigrants. You simply did not have this with the Italians/Irish/German/Chinese/Japanese immigrants of past. There is no getting around this, either.

Yes I know that in the past some countries in Europe, notably France, have absorbed Muslim immigrants with no problems. But back then everyone expected the immigrants to assimilate to some degree, and you did not have the current problem of extremism that you have today. Leftist multiculturalism has made a bad situation worse.

The problem with Muslim extremism in Europe is serious and getting worse. I hate to sound like an alarmist, but it's true. Ignoring it won't make it go away.

Update

Threatswatch has more on the French Intifada, which, they conclude, is growing.