Exceeding the boundaries of 'totally unacceptable'

Twenty "immigrant" youths go wild on a New Year's train in France, robbing and terrorizing passengers, committing at least one instance of sexual molestation, ripping up seats with knives and breaking windows (during one of the coldest nights in years), and French president Jacques Chirac, five days later, calls it "totally unacceptable."

What is totally unacceptable is that it takes five days for Monsieur President to make a declaration that the "guilty will be found, and punished as they deserve."

The gang of between 20 and 30 youths boarded the train, heading from Nice on the French Riviera to Lyon, in eastern France, early on Jan. 1, as it carried 600 passengers home from New Year's Eve partying overnight.

Once inside, they went wild, forcing passengers to hand over mobile phones and wallets, and slashing seats and breaking windows.

A 20-year-old woman cornered by several of the marauders was sexually molested.

"It was a real scene of pillage on the train," said the regional state prosecutor, Dominique Luigi, adding that the passengers were in a state of "panic."

Train staff alerted police, and the train pulled into a station to wait. The three officers who initially turned up later were joined by reinforcements.

A waitress in a bar near the station said two young women from the train had come inside in tears. "They told me there had been groping. They talked about sexual assaults. They were really traumatized," she said.

The train resumed its journey with the heavy police presence on board but, just before Marseille, the youths pulled the emergency stop and many escaped.

This news comes a couple of days after French officials announced that because of a calm New Year's Eve they were pulling the plug on the emergency powers instituted during the fall riots.

Perhaps they were a bit hasty, no?

But the really astonishing, totally unacceptable, news is buried in the Agency Presse France story. The "wilding" occurred because police officers in Nice put the men on the train!

Police in Nice, meanwhile, said they had escorted the group of drunken youths and put them on the train Sunday to ensure they did not cause trouble in the city.

Police said they thought the gang was part of a bigger group of 100 youths from the Marseille area who had gone to Nice and nearby seaside resorts for New Year's Eve, taking advantage of a special $1 New Year's Day train fare.

Nothing like passing your troubles on to the next guy, or gal. This is so typically Euro-think: ignore the problem, and if you can't ignore the problem, make sure that it's relocated to another jurisdiction.

Seriously we do not wish bad things on the French. We hope they wake up before it is too late.

SIDE NOTE -- For an interesting take on what's happening with the assault on Western civilization in general, read "It's the Demography, Stupid!" by Mark Steyn in the Wall Street Journal opinion section.