European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 12, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                              April 2007 stars and stripes Mideast edition Page 15 French candidates focus on the slums residents dubious of change As country prepares for election by Elaine Ganley the associated press France ragged pants and shirts Dangle from a tree out Side an apartment pigeons feast on garbage dumped from streaks of Graffiti Blacken Dank entryways like Welcome to Pur says a sardonic sign stuck on a lamp As France Heads into a fateful presiden tial election april the candidates Are full of promises and plans for fixing the slums that erupted in violence two years Here in the decaying Concrete hous ing project of Les 10 Miles North East of a Hal dozen apartment blocks Are to be razed in a million Ren but not everyone seems Dis Trust runs so deep that Many in Les bouquets fear change will deprive them of the Only certainty they have the Comfort of social structures formed in their ancestral the buildings Are but look at the people there said Sabrina Bel who has lived All her life in Les Les bouquets the Groves was carved from a Forest in a Corner of Mont Fer Sarkozy Jacques police take position at month Vermeil City Hali on May after a candidates in the upcoming elections know they cannot ignore the poor towns sur rounding Frances major described by Victor Hugo in Les miserable As a charming and peaceful Village on the Road to Les bouquets is Home to 60 percent of foreign town officials Here family values Are Apt to include polygamy and even forced delinquency is and youths accuse police of humiliating them with gratuitous identity the projects Are largely self sufficient ghettos that lie out of sight and mind of French Les bouquets exists in a separate universe from the mostly Middle class town that for 24 years has elected mayors avowedly hostile to mayor Xavier Lemoine acknowledges conflicts with project Many of whom dont give a Damn about French so they Are reproducing their society of origin they want their own Lemoine the real Challenge today in the suburbs is a cultural with the exception of conservative front runner Nicolas leading candidates for president including the lefts Segolena Royal and centrist Francois Bay Rou have campaigned in housing offering moral support and ideas for but none has come up with a Marshall plan to fix decades of Dis criminal mismanagement and instead they All propose partial Royal advocates Boot Camp for Delin Sarkozy promises a years Job train an affirmative action program and a Royal ministry of immigration and National Iden Tity though he Hast defined its fun Bayrou wants to Post a representative of the state in each sensitive neighbor Hood to ensure against in Les such proposals Are Dis missed with a jaded Good intentions unravel against the cold facts of Unzem Les bouquets jobless rate is 35 to 40 percent More than double month Ermels 17 percent and More than four times the National Many Job seek poorly educated or unable to speak Are simply jobs Counselor the Economy runs on a thriving Black Market and millions of dollars in regional and local which critics say Only deepens the disconnect from French Sci but the election is having a galvanizing effect in poor neighbourhoods where some 5 million people live and where turnout is traditionally a voter turnout drive there has ratcheted up the number of potential and 96 percent of those sounded in a january poll said they would Sarkozy and Royal have and have appointed Counselor of North Afri can the renovation plan Calls for replacing Les bouquets apartment blocks with smaller a commercial Center and per haps a preparation and filing re of v7v l i visit to file your Federal and state maximize your refund easy process i use your tax refund wisely save and pay off debt Call now dial country Access code first Call collect 48453o59o8 Contact your International operator for assistance you name we can help provided by the department 6f defense at no coat to Active guard and Reserve regardless of activation status and their family Dane sentenced to prison for promoting terrorism by Jan Olsen the associated press Denmark a moroccan born Dane was found guilty wednesday of promoting terrorism by calling for a holy War against the West on Digi Tal video recordings that were distributed across the Copenhagen City court sentenced said to three years and six months in Pris Mansour became the first per son convicted under a 2002 antiterrorism Law that forbids instigation of terrorism or offering advice to he has been in custody since his arrest in september when police raided his Copen Hagen Home and found scores of recordings in which he called for or holy against the Mansour has denied the charge saying his Mission for islam was defense lawyer Gitte Juul Jensen said Mansour was not inciting but expressing his religious he is an islamist and this is his it is a very Tough sen Juul Jensen adding Mansour had not yet decided whether to police seized some Droms and roughly 500 com Puter disks in the Many contained inflammatory i said Monsour sadist speeches and gruesome images of hostages and prisoners being executed in Afghanistan and in he distributed the material through his Small publishing House Al Nur islamic prosecutors some of Man sours publications have been found across eur including at a mosque in the Northern italian town of Cremo where an extremist cell was allegedly during the prosecutor Lone Damgaard said Mansour had contacts to known Radical is including Abu Musab the former Leader of Al Aida in the three judge panel turned Down the prosecutions demand that who has lived in Denmark since be stripped of his danish