Quote:
this was pretty flippant


Perhaps it seemed flippant. It certainly wasn't meant that way. I think the whole abortion issue is so full of hypocrisy as to not even be a real debate.

Back to your orignal question "Is France unique?" Not intending any smugness or joy in the position that France now finds itself, I do think it is more than symbolic that it can be summed up with the image of a French muslim throwing a molotov cocktail made with a French wine bottle filled with gasoline refined from oil from a muslim country.

I suspect there is a larger religious element to the rioting than is being admitted to by the French. I also suspect there is a simmering general resentment by French muslims over the continuing attempts by the French to secularize muslims. They, the French, are likely fomenting the very thing they are trying to supress.

Wasn't it just a year ago when the French banned head scarves by muslims in public schools? With that simple edict, aren't the French stigmatizing muslims within their country. Is that law symbolic of the French attitude towards an element of their own population? How is a muslim supposed to reconcile the conflict between their religious beliefs and French law?