As far as I know, the best racial riot I have ever seen was LA 1992, that was greaaaaaaaat !

Don't believe the hype...

I also lived in France and been to the 'banlieue'areas where the violence is occurring.

Would you call a kid who breakdances to hip hop and smokes dope a fundamentalist muslim, or even just 'muslim'?

That's what they did there.

These riots are as religious as the L.A. riots were.

As a Brit who in my student days spent quite some time in affected areas I know them reasonably well. I'd say they are only Muslim in the same way that Britain is supposed to be Christian.

That is, they certainly have a history, identity and some values and practices of that religion, but in general aren't particularly devout.

It should be noted that the largest French Muslim fundamentalist organisation (Union des Organisations Islamiques de France) has very strongly encouraged 'true' Muslims not to take part in the violence. Some moderate-to-devout Muslims blame the violence on a loss of faith, observing that those taking part are doing so because they have become 'too secular'.

Most of them live in housing put up to accommodate immigrant workers who helped with rebuilding after the second world war. The buildings are well built, characterful brick structures, but very dilapidated. In other parts of Paris well kept buildings of a similar era are rented as high-value apartments. The nearest I've seen in the USA was in certain parts of Chicargo.

There is a lot of unemployment, but, taking informal, cash-paid jobs into account, not as much as most figures suggest.

The current uprisings aren't all *that* surprising. A lot of the North Africans don't really feel a part of the community, and feel excluded from their country's prosperity. There are a lot of parallels with LA's race riots.

As with most of Europe, people of a particular religion aren't disrespected qua that faith, but there is a trend for people who strongly put their identity in religion to be looked at as being, well, a bit odd and ungrateful for not fully participating in the modern secular state experiment. This is pretty much the same for strongly Christian people; some of the best and oldest Parisian buildings are Christian, and loved by the people there, but are very often frequented by non-Christian tourists and natives purely for the spectacle of a grand building. Some of the Christians are starting to feel 'pushed out'.

(BTW, the trend in Britain as church attendance falls is to just let the buildings become increasingly unused)

For the last few years the French government has been leaning much more towards assimilation than would have been considered before. Banning headscarves and other religious symbols in public schools is just the best known example.

Oh, and if France sold itself to the Devil and got their food in return, they got a good deal :-)

Paris suburb burns (Christophe Ena - AP)Update: Earlier Your Business Blogger suggested that France was a poor venue for business. Paris is now terrible even for tourists. France will be slow to deal with the Muslim Jihadists. Markets hate...

From most mainstream (or lamestream) media you still wouldn't know that a momentous story is developing in Europe. For the eighth consecutive day Ramadan fires are torching hundreds of vehicles and buildings and threatening to spread beyond France's ...

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The riots in Paris and surrounding cities continued for a seventh night last night.

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Paris is reaping what it’s sown, and if we don’t heed the warnings (as if the murder of thousands and destruction of two buildings in New York City weren’t enough), we can expect the same.
Lax immigration policies, prostration to t...