For years, France had backed the régime of President Juvenal Habyarimana's Hutu-dominated MRND party, even after evidence mounted that French-trained Rwandan soldiers had carried out pogroms and massacres against the country's Tutsi minority.

Why would they do this?  Rwanda carries no particular economic importance for France or anyone else; it is tiny, landlocked, and poor.

The answer lies in one word: language.

Is this an example of the new, robust, EU foreign policy?  A Europe no longer afraid of force, able to step in while its American rival is tied down in an endless war?

No, it is not.  It brings home to me all that is ugly about Europe - its legacy of colonialism, racism, and exploitation.  This is a continent that once enslaved the world.  It today may have progressive welfare states and humane labour markets, but the old, darker instincts are still there.

The Los Angeles riots of 1992 lasted less than four days.  The 1965 Watts riots were six days.  The UK's Brixton riots of 1981 were three days.

Things like this are not supposed to happen in Europe.  The USA is the harsh, laissez-faire society with a permanent underclass; Europe's more generous social programs are supposed to prevent inequality and hatreds from taking root.  But obviously this equation has failed.  France has an underclass, despite decades of étatisme.

It is easy for leftists to point the blame at France's centre-right government, to posturing between Sarkozy and de Villepin.  That doesn't explain why the riots broke out.  Nor does it explain how to either stop them in the short term or ease the long-term fissures that led to them.