So. You're right. It's slanted and unfair. Not because of the detailed picture (why are you surprised at cités that look like US housing projects? I've used the comparison myself here on ET a number of times. Or, haven't we said here that there is racial discrimination in the French job market, for example?), but because, overall, the right-wing push Sarkozy has given the election campaign here gives the English-language media the opportunity to pursue one of their favourite French-bashing themes, according to which France is a dismally racist country beset by conflict with "immigrant youth" yada yada yada.

As for the general "immigration" problem, the reality is that of social, not racial, segregation. The HLM were built in concentrated bunchs in the 60's and 70's, and are now very homogeneous socially- with only the lower end of the social ladder. Which happens to have a larger proportion of immigrants than the rest of France.

LePen, systematically, and right wing politicians, sporadically, have made a link between the violence that comes from these poor districts - that always come from poor urban districts - and immigration. Chirac had been propping this link in the 80's and 90's, Sarkozy is doing the same thing during this campaign.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

"français de souche ...whose ancestors have been in France for centuries." For 20 years, historians and sociologists like Noiriel and Weil have demonstrated that only a very small %, probably 20% at most, "have been in France" since the early 1800s and even if that is what he meant (although it appears he meant white), the concept of a biological basis for nationality is something that would be scandalous if applied, for instance, to the United States. But its an easy opposition, white vs immigrant, so the reporter adopts it and the editors don't blink an eye.

"all great European cities these days are filled with immigrants" -- enough of Eurabia. This is true, see above, but what the author really means of course is that there sure are a lot more people who aren't white than there used to be. European cities have been filled with "immigrants" for thousands of years; over half the population in Paris in 1775 when presumably it was all français de souche migrated from other regions and city governments in European cities had, "for centuries," pursued policies of trying to exclude them from establishing residence. Whats new are not the immigrants; its the identification of "immigrant" with "non-white," since the 1970s.

"young rioters at the Garde du Nord." Read any news story or watch any tv news report from that week (and there was lots of video taken) -- what was significant about that incident is that the crowd was composed of a wide sociological and racial range of commuters, all equally shocked by the violent and menacing behavior of the CRS. That it was only black and beur kids who were arrested tells us a lot more about what the CRS looks for when they get worked up than about who was outraged at the Gare du Nord.

"verlain" as spoken in "banlieus." No its been slang in French collèges (middle schoools) for at least 30 years, probably much longer. The author probably had to have "beur" explained to him, and presumed from there that "real French" people don't speak that way.

"the base of support for Le Pen, are single-issue voters..." If the "dean of French pollsters" thinks so, it may be why the polls consistently are so wrong. As I posted on another thread, and as several books including Wolfram and Physh demonstrate, its been almost two decades since LePen stopped emphasizing "France aux francais" and "preference nationale" and moved on to a much broader, much more demagogic (but also much subtler) discourse -- in part because his incorrect and racist presuppositions, such as "français de souche" versus "immigrés" are so widely ingrained in the minds of people like David Rieff.

Many architects, in my experience, have the same disconnect from social realities as gamers who become fighter pilots _ they fail to make the transition from the inconsequential to the consequential.

I'd go as far as to say that many architects think that people should adapt to their buildings rather than the other way round. Stuart Brand did a fascinating documentary about architecture: he visited scores of 20th C notable buildings and asked a simple question, "How many times since the inauguration of the building have the architects revisited to learn how their building is used, and in what way the design might have been improved?". 99% had never officially revisited.

Architecture is not about edifices, it is about people in spaces and how they might behave. That is about as aesthetic as you can get ;-)

I don't have a problem with the concept of banlieues - they were a cost efficient short-term solution to a social problem. The problem I have is with the architects, because I don't think it is impossible to provide dense housing AND the kind of amenities that turn a huge bunch of neighbours into a community. Yes, it will be a little more expensive in the short term - but hugely (socially) cost-effective in the longer term.

You can't be me, I'm taken