The Fire This Time

In America, we tend to put our public housing projects in our decaying inner cities. In fact, the trend in America is away from massive public housing. In France, starting in the mid 50's until the 70's, massive cities were built outside the big cities. They are called banlieus...literally lost places.
They started as a utopian solution for the influx of immigrants and the poor and middle class. Gradually these places became more accessible as public transportation systems reached farther out. But for most people who live there, it is an isolated world.
As most Utopian modern ideas start, they always look good on paper. Let people live there for 10 or 20 years with out government reinvestment in the maintenence of infrastructure and things fall apart.
Raise a few generations of kids without adequate recreational and social services, in a country with out enough jobs for the white "French" population and you have institutionalized delinquency. Throw in a repressive police system and you have a huge festering problem.
In 2005, almost exactly 2 years ago, the banlieus outside of Paris erupted in 6 nights of riots which almost brought down the Chirac government. Nicolas Sarkozy was the Interior Minister at the time and reacted by throwing gasoline on the fire with he Karcher comment. A Karcher is a high pressure water hose and he said he was going to clean the banlieus with one..
As the riots died down, there was a lot of discussion about the causes and a lot of ideas publicly bandied about by the government. 2 years later, for the most part, the ideas never got past the talking stage. For the most part, it was a holding action, a good show for the concerned public.
Earlier this year, France went through a Presidential Election which was won by Sarkozy by pandering to the fears of an aging conservative base. He played to their fears of immigrants and constantly used the threat of insecurity to great advantage.
By doing this, he really established his image as a repressive fascist to a big portion of the the population who are more militant.
So, there you have it. A fire that was never really dealt with, a situation that is more volatile in fact. A police force arrogant with power stopping kids for no reason usually.
Demanding to see papers....
It took one incident. A police car collided with a motor scooter killing two kids. Did the police try to get away with out assisting the kids? That's what the witnesses say.
That's all it took. They have guns this time. There have been over 80 cops hurt in the last 2 nights. Countless cars torched, libraries, schools and businesses burnt.
It's been quiet so far tonight in Paris, but the action is just starting in Toulouse.
If the government thinks they can solve this by throwing more cops and CRS at the kids, they are as irreponsible as monkeys in an oil refinery with flame throwers...
Because the fire this time........................