From the Economist:

“IN THE deprived suburbs, a kind of soft terror rules. When too many young people see nothing ahead but unemployment after they leave school, they end up rebelling. For a time the state can struggle to impose order, and rely on welfare benefits to avoid worse. But how long can this last?”

Amazingly, that was Jacques Chirac in 1995. He’s had ten years to deal with the problem, which, by the way, produced a 17th straight night of serious violence, according to Le Figaro. We have said that there is no easy solution for France, which has 10% general and 30% youth unemployment, despite (really, because of) funneling 57% of GDP into government spending.

There is one tactic, however, that the Chirac government has employed magnificently: making the perps invisible. We have already commented on the media blackout, as have others. Yet we are constantly amazed at video in which policemen and firemen are mostly standing around, and there are zip, zero, nada perps caught on tape; here’s one example via Le Figaro (click on the Sarkozy link at the bottom of the piece).

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 13th, 2005 at 12:32 pm and is filed under business, EU, General, Left of Left, Religion, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.