FRANCE: The call to arms has been circulating on French blogs and text messages for days: "All the housing projects should rise. The wait is over. Friday, November 11th, a meeting under the Eiffel Tower. At 2pm show up, it's important."
"We are aware of it and we're taking this very seriously," said one Paris police official. But, he added of the war cry: "We don't quite know what to make of it."
While riot police are attempting to curb the gangs that have been setting fire to cars and buildings in France's poor suburban communities for the past two weeks, French officials have only just begun the struggle to control a more amorphous battleground: cyberspace. Internet blogs have become so vicious that police have opened investigations against two teenagers for inciting violence on a radio-sponsored blog. Hackers took over the website of the town of Clichy-sous-Bois in northern Paris where the first attacks began on October 27th and dispatched thousands of fake e-mails announcing the mayor's resignation. Local gangs have used text messaging on cell phones as early warning systems to alert members about riot police .
"It is the first time France has experienced a real crisis in the age of the internet," said Bruno Patino, co-author of a newly published book, The Press without Gutenburg, about the internet's emerging dominance over traditional media outlets. "And it's easy to see how the internet can increase the momentum of the crisis."
Law enforcement officials say they are investigating possible use of the internet for co-ordinating attacks among some of the 300 cities across the nation where the violence has spread. But web monitors and sponsors said the greatest impact of the internet has been as a forum conveying messages that incite further violence. "The comments are very, very violent on both sides - by the people who are calling for the rioting and the people who are anti-riot and are very radical in their ideas," said Stephane Dreyfus, a member of the web team at France's daily La Croix newspaper.
The web site of Skyrock, one of France's radio stations popular with teenagers, shut down its most provocative blogs this week after the exchanges became increasingly vile and bloggers used the forum to call for a violent gathering at the Eiffel Tower today.
"God bless France, because war is about to begin," wrote a blogger called Nour.
"The hate will turn around," countered another who signed his name as Raslebo. "I am sick of these bearded fascists."
The tone and description of the crisis on the internet has started to diverge dramatically from TV and traditional news media. The internet was being flooded with messages inciting violence on Wednesday as the country's largest TV network announced that it would no longer report the number of burned cars, in an effort to cool the competition between gangs.
A 16-year-old French youth and an 18-year-old Ghanaian from a Paris suburb are under investigation for "provoking wilful property damage that posed a danger to people via the internet", prosecutors said. Each had posted blogs on the Skyrock radio's website. One of the blog notices urged: "Go to the nearest police station and burn it."