Did anyone actually read Mavimao's post? What are you all talking about communism and the second world war for? This is about taking advantage of a certain group of people (be it class or race) and then when said group finally says enough is enough, not being able to handle it. I enjoy a good stab at teh French as much as the next English or American man, but you guys are, quite frankly, talking sh*t. Pretty much every country in the world is guilty of taking advantage of another country or group at some point, and it usually backfires, which is what is going on in France now. Read what Mavimao said (which, after some research of my own I can confirm is a good summary of the issue) and then make some worthwhile comments or none at all.
Originally posted by: Mavimao
Having lived in France for 5 years, I can tell you a bit more in depth at what's happening.
After the 2nd world war, France needed men to help re-build their country so they looked to their North African colonies for manpower. They brought them in, gave them jobs, but didn't aid them in providing housing. They were forced to live in slums for quite a while until the government stepped in and built project housing. These "banlieus" or "suburbs" located outside of major cities became the major living space of these immigrants.
A lot of jobs that were given to these immigrants were somewhat hapless: garbage collectors, street sweepers...civil servants basically. The children of these immigrants and their children began to feel like outsiders. On one hand, their parents were Arabs but, the children could not relate to them at all having never grown up in their parents' country. On the other hand they had French nationality, but white French citizens refer to them simply as "Arabs". These 2nd and 3rd generation citizens began accepting Hip Hop and American gang/rap culture into their lives. They could relate to Black Americans who struggle to this day to be fully accepted into society. So unemployment, poverty, gang culture and disaffection: a natural breeding ground for criminal behavior.
When this crime started affecting citizens in the more "white" areas of France, there was alarm for concern. Most of this crime is beatings, bullying, grafitti and theft and the white citizens don't feel safe (this explains the scary popularity of the Front National: a radical right political party bent on restoring France's "soverignty" by kicking out immigrants and creating programs to send Arab citizens back to their "home country") The government in the past few years or so have decided to crack down on spiraling crime rates. They began to get tough in these hard hitting areas that had been largely ignored by police.
You can pretty much guess the vicious circle that this has created: the residents of these poor neighborhoods have had enough of being treated like 2nd class citizens, and the more affluent residents of France tired of all the crime that seems to come from the "banlieus". The two youths that were killed was the straw that broke the camel's back.
So what do you do? As you can see there is no easy solution. You can't just snap your fingers and create respect and jobs for the minority. You can try to fight it, but you're only adding fuel to the fire.
But please know that the fires are caused by a minority, there have been peace protests by the residents of these neighborhoods as well. Not everyone in these neighborhoods are doing this.
I hope I've explained this clearly enough.... I do excuse myself if my rhetoric sounds too simplistic (creating two groups: white and arab/black). I'm just trying to explain as simply as possible.