Would you be proud too if these French kids were torching your car? The car you were using to drive to your job to earn enough money to feed your family? The car you bought on a loan, maybe? Assuming you´re poor?

Just asking....

I mean, I suppose that at least some of the thousands of cars now torched weren´t in some rich quarter, right? In fact most of the cars torched weren´t parking in some rich quarter anyway?
We might at least assume that some of the torched cars were the only means of transportation for some poor people trying to get to their job?

Look, I´m trying to be polite here.
But just trying to wave aside the loss of property for some - probably not so well of - people here seems kind of callous.

If you want to further the cause of "a more just society" then why don´t you volunteer your car? Or the school of your kids? Or the kindergarten close to you?

Just asking?

I simply can´t understand your "cheering".
For the simple fact that these "kids" are hurting other poor people in their neighbourhood - either by destroying their cars or by destroying the nurseries and schools in their neighbourhoods. The same nurseries and schools trying to educate the immigrant children.

Not to mention the fact that the problems in France are totally unrelated to Iraq. France opposed the Iraq war and still the riots happened so I suggest you forget to try and relate them to Iraq.

We do have a serious problem in Europe.

hit August 29.  

1. I don't think Katrina history is the issue here. I'm writing about our reactions to these situations.   Please see response to Coleman above.  However, in response to your question, it's thought to be about 1000 in the state of Louisiana.  Katrina is of course a natural disaster, and there are many issues in the count, explained in this article, and here's an earlier article, Katrina Death Toll May Not Be As High as Feared
   
2.  "Help was offered at the time of the flood, and was treated with contempt."  Curious what this was all about?  Do you have a link?  I didn't see anything other than a somewhat bogus report about a British food offer that I saw in a tabloid.  But I would love to read about this.
   
3.  I, and the people I know, are certainly not wallowing in satisfaction about these French problems?  And I think we're still trying to understand how big the problem is.  What kind of help do you mean?

press coverage, quotes from frantic CYA, clueless politicians, and other of the usual American crowd looking to get on TV.  So no they are not quotes, but here is a link to one of the estimates of 10,000 dead in New Orleans (my first point), who proved his ability to warn people early to get out of town, or use the school buses parked in city parking lots to help his constituents, was about as good as his ability to estimate deaths:Katrina Death Toll May Not be as High as FearedKatrina Death Toll May Not be as High as Feared"Mayor Ray Nagin had warned earlier this week that the death toll could reach 10,000. State emergency authorities had ordered 25,000 body bags."  There are issues on the count addressed in a link above where I resonded to Jerome, but it appears now the count in the STATE of Louisiana will be about 10% of that estimate, and New Orleans maybe 20% below that--might be worth reading the link as it reminds us of some of the issues on death tolls of natural disasters.

But to bring out a law dating back to 1955 means sending the kids in the banlieues an incredibly violent message: 50 years later, France will treat them like their grandparents. The prime minister should remember that this spiral of misunderstanding, nervous toughness and powerlessness had led our Republic to dire consequences.

Dire consequences indeed: the Algerian crisis precipitated the end of the 4th Republic:

The instability and ineffectiveness problems of the Fourth Republic came to a head in 1958, when the current government suggested that it would negotiate with the Algerian nationalists. Right-wing elements in the French Army, led by General Jacques Massu seized power in Algiers and threatened to conduct a parachute assault on Paris unless Charles de Gaulle, the WWII hero, was placed in charge of the Republic. De Gaulle did so under the precondition that a new constitution would be introduced creating a powerful presidency. These changes were introduced and the Fifth Republic was born.

When a government cracks down on a protest by a significant part of the population (what fraction of the French population are Banlieu youths? And, more importantly, what fraction is sympathetic to their plight even if disapproving of the riots?) it can cause a crisis of legitimacy. I hope de Villepin knows what he's doing, but apparently even Le Monde does hot think he does.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

The current events are hard to grasp. There are no claims, even less of a political discourse: any incident can lead to the worst consequences. The twin "toughness- fairness" goals stated by Sarkozy (the first applied with measure, the second requiring to be made credible by long term programmes) can legitimately bring the country together. That mayors, locally, also decide to set a curfew is also understandable.

I seem to remember that Sarkozy made some pretty inflammatory statements in the past few days? How is it that this editorial now says that Sarkozy is the moderate trying to bring the country together?

Didn´t you say something about "local police stations" discontinued under Sarkozy?
Moreover, did Sarkozy make any suggestions to deal with the situation without invoking a state of emergency?
If not, then he is as responsible as Villepin....

Featured on the front page of the FT this morning:

De Villepin attacked for imposing riot law

Dominique de Villepin, France's prime minister, was accused on Tuesday of losing his sang-froid after resorting to a state of emergency to quell riots that have set the suburbs of France's biggest cities alight during the past 12 days.

(...)

Le Monde, the newspaper of France's political elite, accused the prime minister of sending a message of "staggering brutality" to the youth of the suburbs, who are for the most part children and grandchildren of African immigrants.

By invoking a law created in 1955 to put down unrest during the Algerian war of independence, Le Monde said, Mr de Villepin had "lost his sang-froid" and was sending the message that "France intends to treat them [the French-born children of immigrants] as it did their grandparents. The prime minister should remember that this spiral of incomprehension, of martial fever and powerlessness has driven the republic to its worst setbacks".

(...)

While France's political parties support the government's decision to impose a state of emergency to restore order - albeit with some reservations - a number of deputies and mayors said on Tuesday they would refuse to implement the measures.

André Labarrère, a Socialist senator and mayor of the south-western city of Pau, said he was "totally opposed" to the state of emergency. "It is a form of discrimination that will be very badly received."

Jean-Marc Ayrault president of the Socialist party, said the opposition was prepared to accept the measures because of the urgent need to restore order. However, he warned against using the state of emergency, which will be in place for the next 12 days, as a smokescreen to cover up deeper social problems. It was "first and foremost a social state of emergency", he said. "The young people in revolt are the lost children of a liberal society."

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

that kids everywhere subscribe to: they relate internationally by it and though i find it generally sucks, being fruit of a nike-gap type corporate wet dream, it may be good in one sense - it is global. ignore the attitude and try to educate them to use their hearts, hands and brains while still young, and to avoid futile violence.

can you imagine if they all were laying in the road and blocking traffic, or something ghandian like that?

maybe it's my projection, and they know better, as the 'soft' way would certainly get a lot of them arrested, and this way doesn't.

it's that the violence turns off many who would listen.

another interesting thing: the leaders are very much in the background, and therefore unavailable for mediation, and thus banalisation.

besides, the 'movement' doesn't need spokesmen really, the media is already crawling with an overabundance, and the issues are as obvious as their collective rage.

this way its like p2p, many fragments, difficult to target.

open source networks show their fleet strength again!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

where apparently young folks spend so much time hanging out drinking in the plazas till dawn, that many residents have insomnia!

maybe if the weather were a little - or a lot warmer - these folks in the rainy burbs of paris would get more of their ya-yas out that way.

growing up in foggy england, and comparing it with how kids grow up here in italy, i remain pretty convinced the weather helps....A LOT, when it comes to nursing chips on shoulders.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty