the human province

After another night of rioting, which has spread to cities all over France and even to Belgium and Germany, and as the government is implementing a state of emergency and a curfew , it is important to take a serious look at the incidents instead of listening to news outlets that can't get their geography right or those who are calling this the intifada in France based on a two hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle airport.

First of all, Paris is not burning. Certain suburbs throughout the country are at night, but if I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the radio, I wouldn't even know that there were any riots, because, for the most part, nothing has changed in the actual city limits of Paris.

Second, this is not a religious conflict. This is a socio-economic and a racial problem, much like the LA riots in 1992 (58 dead) and the Watts riots in 1965 (32 dead). Neither is it a question of one country occupying another, so the parallels of the Palestinian intifada are ludicrous at best.

The events of the last 11 nights are complicated and seemingly contradictory, but no more so than any other instance of collective violence: there is no real ideological underpinning, but the riots are more than just senseless violence; people are angry at a country that has provided poorly for them and put up barriers against their pursuit of happiness, so they burn their own neighborhoods; the state will punish those it catches in acts of lawlessness, but its attention has been grabbed in a way that peaceful protests and letter writing campaigns have not been able to accomplish.

Robert Darnton wrote an article called Reading a riot in the New York Review of Books shortly after the LA riots, in which he discussed a book about the Paris riots of 1750.

Despite their obvious differences, one can pick out plenty of similarities between Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750: the previous histories of rioting, the settings of poverty, the influx of immigration, the prevalence of homelessness, the influence of gangs, the resentment of oppression, and the provocation of police, who made a show of force and then, with the threat of confrontation, withdrew. If George Bush will not do as Louis XV, Daryl Gates would make a credible Berryer. And the folklore of the blood bath is no more extravagant than the myth about AIDS as an epidemic unleashed by whites to destroy blacks.

But even if they run parallel, the comparisons do not lead anywhere, because the past does not provide pre-packaged lessons for the present. The rioters of Paris inhabited a mental world that differed completely from that of the rioters in Los Angeles; and the history of rioting demonstrates the need to understand mentalités in all their specificity rather than to search for general models. Riots have meanings as well as causes. To discover what they mean, we must learn to read them, scanning across centuries for patterns of behavior and looking for order in the apparent anarchy that explodes under our noses. We have a long way to go; but if we ever get there, we may be able to make sense of what has seemed to be the most irrational ingredient of our civilization: "popular emotion."

Likewise in Paris today, there are parallels to be seen. Nicolas Sarkozy, the current French Minister of the Interior, would probably empathize with Gates and Berryer (the chiefs of police in Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750, respectively). But we must be careful about blindly applying one historical event upon another similar one, and avoid at all costs forcing two dissimilar ones together to suit an ideology or a strained narrative, like so many American bloggers seem intent on doing with their imaginary clash of civilizations.

The problem here is a complex one, and it has no easy solutions. Second and third generation children of immigrants from Africa and Asia have not been integrated into French society, and many opportunities remain out of their reach, due to a vicious cycle of a lack of governmental integration efforts and communautarisme or ghettoization. At this point, it's not really important which came first; they both feed on each other. This is illustrated in a lack of representation of a group of people that is French and makes up around 12% of France's population. There are very few minority politicians and, besides comics and rappers, I can only think of one Arab who is regularly on television: Rachid Arhab, who is often referred to as Rachid l'Arabe.

France, like many other countries, has not done a good job of integrating the immigrants who were necessary for the country's development and their French children. And in order to prevent things like this from happening again, it's going to take more than quick fixes and band-aids. But in the end, that's the problem: no one pays attention to these people until it's too late; no one talks very seriously about reforming state housing, fighting against discrimination, bettering education and raising employment in these areas until they're already ablaze.

So while the electrocution of the two boys in Clichy-sous-Bois and Sarkozy's televised comments about taking out the trash probably ignited the riots, the fuel for them has been laying around dormant for a while.

In his article about the incidents in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Alex Duval Smith of The Observer quotes a youth of Algerian descent whose opinions are lucid and, unfortunately have a certain logic about them:

'He [Sarkozy] should go and fuck himself,' says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. 'We are not germs. He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late.'

HB's views are clear. 'The only way to get the police here is to set fire to something. The fire brigade does not come here without the police, and the police are Sarkozy's men so they are the ones we want to see.'

All the dustbins were burnt long ago. 'Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them. How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office.' ...

Jobs? 'There are a few at the airport and at the Citroën plant, but it's not even worth trying if your name is Mohamed or Abdelaoui.' ...

When asked if he considers himself integrated in France, HB claims that is not his aspiration. 'I am not sure what the word means. I am part of Mille-Mille and Seine-Saint-Denis, but I am not part of Sarkozy's France, or even the France of our local mayor whom we never see. At the same time, I realise I am French, because when I visit my parents' village in Algeria that doesn't feel like home either.'

After another night of rioting, which has spread to cities all over France and even to Belgium and Germany, and as the government is implementing a state of emergency and a curfew , it is important to take a serious look at the incidents instead of listening to news outlets that can't get their geography right or those who are calling this the intifada in France based on a two hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle airport.

First of all, Paris is not burning. Certain suburbs throughout the country are at night, but if I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the radio, I wouldn't even know that there were any riots, because, for the most part, nothing has changed in the actual city limits of Paris.

Second, this is not a religious conflict. This is a socio-economic and a racial problem, much like the LA riots in 1992 (58 dead) and the Watts riots in 1965 (32 dead). Neither is it a question of one country occupying another, so the parallels of the Palestinian intifada are ludicrous at best.

The events of the last 11 nights are complicated and seemingly contradictory, but no more so than any other instance of collective violence: there is no real ideological underpinning, but the riots are more than just senseless violence; people are angry at a country that has provided poorly for them and put up barriers against their pursuit of happiness, so they burn their own neighborhoods; the state will punish those it catches in acts of lawlessness, but its attention has been grabbed in a way that peaceful protests and letter writing campaigns have not been able to accomplish.

Robert Darnton wrote an article called Reading a riot in the New York Review of Books shortly after the LA riots, in which he discussed a book about the Paris riots of 1750.

Despite their obvious differences, one can pick out plenty of similarities between Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750: the previous histories of rioting, the settings of poverty, the influx of immigration, the prevalence of homelessness, the influence of gangs, the resentment of oppression, and the provocation of police, who made a show of force and then, with the threat of confrontation, withdrew. If George Bush will not do as Louis XV, Daryl Gates would make a credible Berryer. And the folklore of the blood bath is no more extravagant than the myth about AIDS as an epidemic unleashed by whites to destroy blacks.

But even if they run parallel, the comparisons do not lead anywhere, because the past does not provide pre-packaged lessons for the present. The rioters of Paris inhabited a mental world that differed completely from that of the rioters in Los Angeles; and the history of rioting demonstrates the need to understand mentalités in all their specificity rather than to search for general models. Riots have meanings as well as causes. To discover what they mean, we must learn to read them, scanning across centuries for patterns of behavior and looking for order in the apparent anarchy that explodes under our noses. We have a long way to go; but if we ever get there, we may be able to make sense of what has seemed to be the most irrational ingredient of our civilization: "popular emotion."

Likewise in Paris today, there are parallels to be seen. Nicolas Sarkozy, the current French Minister of the Interior, would probably empathize with Gates and Berryer (the chiefs of police in Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750, respectively). But we must be careful about blindly applying one historical event upon another similar one, and avoid at all costs forcing two dissimilar ones together to suit an ideology or a strained narrative, like so many American bloggers seem intent on doing with their imaginary clash of civilizations.

The problem here is a complex one, and it has no easy solutions. Second and third generation children of immigrants from Africa and Asia have not been integrated into French society, and many opportunities remain out of their reach, due to a vicious cycle of a lack of governmental integration efforts and communautarisme or ghettoization. At this point, it's not really important which came first; they both feed on each other. This is illustrated in a lack of representation of a group of people that is French and makes up around 12% of France's population. There are very few minority politicians and, besides comics and rappers, I can only think of one Arab who is regularly on television: Rachid Arhab, who is often referred to as Rachid l'Arabe.

France, like many other countries, has not done a good job of integrating the immigrants who were necessary for the country's development and their French children. And in order to prevent things like this from happening again, it's going to take more than quick fixes and band-aids. But in the end, that's the problem: no one pays attention to these people until it's too late; no one talks very seriously about reforming state housing, fighting against discrimination, bettering education and raising employment in these areas until they're already ablaze.

So while the electrocution of the two boys in Clichy-sous-Bois and Sarkozy's televised comments about taking out the trash probably ignited the riots, the fuel for them has been laying around dormant for a while.

In his article about the incidents in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Alex Duval Smith of The Observer quotes a youth of Algerian descent whose opinions are lucid and, unfortunately have a certain logic about them:

'He [Sarkozy] should go and fuck himself,' says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. 'We are not germs. He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late.'

HB's views are clear. 'The only way to get the police here is to set fire to something. The fire brigade does not come here without the police, and the police are Sarkozy's men so they are the ones we want to see.'

All the dustbins were burnt long ago. 'Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them. How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office.' ...

Jobs? 'There are a few at the airport and at the Citroën plant, but it's not even worth trying if your name is Mohamed or Abdelaoui.' ...

When asked if he considers himself integrated in France, HB claims that is not his aspiration. 'I am not sure what the word means. I am part of Mille-Mille and Seine-Saint-Denis, but I am not part of Sarkozy's France, or even the France of our local mayor whom we never see. At the same time, I realise I am French, because when I visit my parents' village in Algeria that doesn't feel like home either.'

After another night of rioting, which has spread to cities all over France and even to Belgium and Germany, and as the government is implementing a state of emergency and a curfew , it is important to take a serious look at the incidents instead of listening to news outlets that can't get their geography right or those who are calling this the intifada in France based on a two hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle airport.

First of all, Paris is not burning. Certain suburbs throughout the country are at night, but if I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the radio, I wouldn't even know that there were any riots, because, for the most part, nothing has changed in the actual city limits of Paris.

Second, this is not a religious conflict. This is a socio-economic and a racial problem, much like the LA riots in 1992 (58 dead) and the Watts riots in 1965 (32 dead). Neither is it a question of one country occupying another, so the parallels of the Palestinian intifada are ludicrous at best.

The events of the last 11 nights are complicated and seemingly contradictory, but no more so than any other instance of collective violence: there is no real ideological underpinning, but the riots are more than just senseless violence; people are angry at a country that has provided poorly for them and put up barriers against their pursuit of happiness, so they burn their own neighborhoods; the state will punish those it catches in acts of lawlessness, but its attention has been grabbed in a way that peaceful protests and letter writing campaigns have not been able to accomplish.

Robert Darnton wrote an article called Reading a riot in the New York Review of Books shortly after the LA riots, in which he discussed a book about the Paris riots of 1750.

Despite their obvious differences, one can pick out plenty of similarities between Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750: the previous histories of rioting, the settings of poverty, the influx of immigration, the prevalence of homelessness, the influence of gangs, the resentment of oppression, and the provocation of police, who made a show of force and then, with the threat of confrontation, withdrew. If George Bush will not do as Louis XV, Daryl Gates would make a credible Berryer. And the folklore of the blood bath is no more extravagant than the myth about AIDS as an epidemic unleashed by whites to destroy blacks.

But even if they run parallel, the comparisons do not lead anywhere, because the past does not provide pre-packaged lessons for the present. The rioters of Paris inhabited a mental world that differed completely from that of the rioters in Los Angeles; and the history of rioting demonstrates the need to understand mentalités in all their specificity rather than to search for general models. Riots have meanings as well as causes. To discover what they mean, we must learn to read them, scanning across centuries for patterns of behavior and looking for order in the apparent anarchy that explodes under our noses. We have a long way to go; but if we ever get there, we may be able to make sense of what has seemed to be the most irrational ingredient of our civilization: "popular emotion."

Likewise in Paris today, there are parallels to be seen. Nicolas Sarkozy, the current French Minister of the Interior, would probably empathize with Gates and Berryer (the chiefs of police in Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750, respectively). But we must be careful about blindly applying one historical event upon another similar one, and avoid at all costs forcing two dissimilar ones together to suit an ideology or a strained narrative, like so many American bloggers seem intent on doing with their imaginary clash of civilizations.

The problem here is a complex one, and it has no easy solutions. Second and third generation children of immigrants from Africa and Asia have not been integrated into French society, and many opportunities remain out of their reach, due to a vicious cycle of a lack of governmental integration efforts and communautarisme or ghettoization. At this point, it's not really important which came first; they both feed on each other. This is illustrated in a lack of representation of a group of people that is French and makes up around 12% of France's population. There are very few minority politicians and, besides comics and rappers, I can only think of one Arab who is regularly on television: Rachid Arhab, who is often referred to as Rachid l'Arabe.

France, like many other countries, has not done a good job of integrating the immigrants who were necessary for the country's development and their French children. And in order to prevent things like this from happening again, it's going to take more than quick fixes and band-aids. But in the end, that's the problem: no one pays attention to these people until it's too late; no one talks very seriously about reforming state housing, fighting against discrimination, bettering education and raising employment in these areas until they're already ablaze.

So while the electrocution of the two boys in Clichy-sous-Bois and Sarkozy's televised comments about taking out the trash probably ignited the riots, the fuel for them has been laying around dormant for a while.

In his article about the incidents in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Alex Duval Smith of The Observer quotes a youth of Algerian descent whose opinions are lucid and, unfortunately have a certain logic about them:

'He [Sarkozy] should go and fuck himself,' says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. 'We are not germs. He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late.'

HB's views are clear. 'The only way to get the police here is to set fire to something. The fire brigade does not come here without the police, and the police are Sarkozy's men so they are the ones we want to see.'

All the dustbins were burnt long ago. 'Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them. How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office.' ...

Jobs? 'There are a few at the airport and at the Citroën plant, but it's not even worth trying if your name is Mohamed or Abdelaoui.' ...

When asked if he considers himself integrated in France, HB claims that is not his aspiration. 'I am not sure what the word means. I am part of Mille-Mille and Seine-Saint-Denis, but I am not part of Sarkozy's France, or even the France of our local mayor whom we never see. At the same time, I realise I am French, because when I visit my parents' village in Algeria that doesn't feel like home either.'

After another night of rioting, which has spread to cities all over France and even to Belgium and Germany, and as the government is implementing a state of emergency and a curfew , it is important to take a serious look at the incidents instead of listening to news outlets that can't get their geography right or those who are calling this the intifada in France based on a two hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle airport.

First of all, Paris is not burning. Certain suburbs throughout the country are at night, but if I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the radio, I wouldn't even know that there were any riots, because, for the most part, nothing has changed in the actual city limits of Paris.

Second, this is not a religious conflict. This is a socio-economic and a racial problem, much like the LA riots in 1992 (58 dead) and the Watts riots in 1965 (32 dead). Neither is it a question of one country occupying another, so the parallels of the Palestinian intifada are ludicrous at best.

The events of the last 11 nights are complicated and seemingly contradictory, but no more so than any other instance of collective violence: there is no real ideological underpinning, but the riots are more than just senseless violence; people are angry at a country that has provided poorly for them and put up barriers against their pursuit of happiness, so they burn their own neighborhoods; the state will punish those it catches in acts of lawlessness, but its attention has been grabbed in a way that peaceful protests and letter writing campaigns have not been able to accomplish.

Robert Darnton wrote an article called Reading a riot in the New York Review of Books shortly after the LA riots, in which he discussed a book about the Paris riots of 1750.

Despite their obvious differences, one can pick out plenty of similarities between Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750: the previous histories of rioting, the settings of poverty, the influx of immigration, the prevalence of homelessness, the influence of gangs, the resentment of oppression, and the provocation of police, who made a show of force and then, with the threat of confrontation, withdrew. If George Bush will not do as Louis XV, Daryl Gates would make a credible Berryer. And the folklore of the blood bath is no more extravagant than the myth about AIDS as an epidemic unleashed by whites to destroy blacks.

But even if they run parallel, the comparisons do not lead anywhere, because the past does not provide pre-packaged lessons for the present. The rioters of Paris inhabited a mental world that differed completely from that of the rioters in Los Angeles; and the history of rioting demonstrates the need to understand mentalités in all their specificity rather than to search for general models. Riots have meanings as well as causes. To discover what they mean, we must learn to read them, scanning across centuries for patterns of behavior and looking for order in the apparent anarchy that explodes under our noses. We have a long way to go; but if we ever get there, we may be able to make sense of what has seemed to be the most irrational ingredient of our civilization: "popular emotion."

Likewise in Paris today, there are parallels to be seen. Nicolas Sarkozy, the current French Minister of the Interior, would probably empathize with Gates and Berryer (the chiefs of police in Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750, respectively). But we must be careful about blindly applying one historical event upon another similar one, and avoid at all costs forcing two dissimilar ones together to suit an ideology or a strained narrative, like so many American bloggers seem intent on doing with their imaginary clash of civilizations.

The problem here is a complex one, and it has no easy solutions. Second and third generation children of immigrants from Africa and Asia have not been integrated into French society, and many opportunities remain out of their reach, due to a vicious cycle of a lack of governmental integration efforts and communautarisme or ghettoization. At this point, it's not really important which came first; they both feed on each other. This is illustrated in a lack of representation of a group of people that is French and makes up around 12% of France's population. There are very few minority politicians and, besides comics and rappers, I can only think of one Arab who is regularly on television: Rachid Arhab, who is often referred to as Rachid l'Arabe.

France, like many other countries, has not done a good job of integrating the immigrants who were necessary for the country's development and their French children. And in order to prevent things like this from happening again, it's going to take more than quick fixes and band-aids. But in the end, that's the problem: no one pays attention to these people until it's too late; no one talks very seriously about reforming state housing, fighting against discrimination, bettering education and raising employment in these areas until they're already ablaze.

So while the electrocution of the two boys in Clichy-sous-Bois and Sarkozy's televised comments about taking out the trash probably ignited the riots, the fuel for them has been laying around dormant for a while.

In his article about the incidents in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Alex Duval Smith of The Observer quotes a youth of Algerian descent whose opinions are lucid and, unfortunately have a certain logic about them:

'He [Sarkozy] should go and fuck himself,' says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. 'We are not germs. He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late.'

HB's views are clear. 'The only way to get the police here is to set fire to something. The fire brigade does not come here without the police, and the police are Sarkozy's men so they are the ones we want to see.'

All the dustbins were burnt long ago. 'Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them. How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office.' ...

Jobs? 'There are a few at the airport and at the Citroën plant, but it's not even worth trying if your name is Mohamed or Abdelaoui.' ...

When asked if he considers himself integrated in France, HB claims that is not his aspiration. 'I am not sure what the word means. I am part of Mille-Mille and Seine-Saint-Denis, but I am not part of Sarkozy's France, or even the France of our local mayor whom we never see. At the same time, I realise I am French, because when I visit my parents' village in Algeria that doesn't feel like home either.'

After another night of rioting, which has spread to cities all over France and even to Belgium and Germany, and as the government is implementing a state of emergency and a curfew , it is important to take a serious look at the incidents instead of listening to news outlets that can't get their geography right or those who are calling this the intifada in France based on a two hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle airport.

First of all, Paris is not burning. Certain suburbs throughout the country are at night, but if I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the radio, I wouldn't even know that there were any riots, because, for the most part, nothing has changed in the actual city limits of Paris.

Second, this is not a religious conflict. This is a socio-economic and a racial problem, much like the LA riots in 1992 (58 dead) and the Watts riots in 1965 (32 dead). Neither is it a question of one country occupying another, so the parallels of the Palestinian intifada are ludicrous at best.

The events of the last 11 nights are complicated and seemingly contradictory, but no more so than any other instance of collective violence: there is no real ideological underpinning, but the riots are more than just senseless violence; people are angry at a country that has provided poorly for them and put up barriers against their pursuit of happiness, so they burn their own neighborhoods; the state will punish those it catches in acts of lawlessness, but its attention has been grabbed in a way that peaceful protests and letter writing campaigns have not been able to accomplish.

Robert Darnton wrote an article called Reading a riot in the New York Review of Books shortly after the LA riots, in which he discussed a book about the Paris riots of 1750.

Despite their obvious differences, one can pick out plenty of similarities between Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750: the previous histories of rioting, the settings of poverty, the influx of immigration, the prevalence of homelessness, the influence of gangs, the resentment of oppression, and the provocation of police, who made a show of force and then, with the threat of confrontation, withdrew. If George Bush will not do as Louis XV, Daryl Gates would make a credible Berryer. And the folklore of the blood bath is no more extravagant than the myth about AIDS as an epidemic unleashed by whites to destroy blacks.

But even if they run parallel, the comparisons do not lead anywhere, because the past does not provide pre-packaged lessons for the present. The rioters of Paris inhabited a mental world that differed completely from that of the rioters in Los Angeles; and the history of rioting demonstrates the need to understand mentalités in all their specificity rather than to search for general models. Riots have meanings as well as causes. To discover what they mean, we must learn to read them, scanning across centuries for patterns of behavior and looking for order in the apparent anarchy that explodes under our noses. We have a long way to go; but if we ever get there, we may be able to make sense of what has seemed to be the most irrational ingredient of our civilization: "popular emotion."

Likewise in Paris today, there are parallels to be seen. Nicolas Sarkozy, the current French Minister of the Interior, would probably empathize with Gates and Berryer (the chiefs of police in Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750, respectively). But we must be careful about blindly applying one historical event upon another similar one, and avoid at all costs forcing two dissimilar ones together to suit an ideology or a strained narrative, like so many American bloggers seem intent on doing with their imaginary clash of civilizations.

The problem here is a complex one, and it has no easy solutions. Second and third generation children of immigrants from Africa and Asia have not been integrated into French society, and many opportunities remain out of their reach, due to a vicious cycle of a lack of governmental integration efforts and communautarisme or ghettoization. At this point, it's not really important which came first; they both feed on each other. This is illustrated in a lack of representation of a group of people that is French and makes up around 12% of France's population. There are very few minority politicians and, besides comics and rappers, I can only think of one Arab who is regularly on television: Rachid Arhab, who is often referred to as Rachid l'Arabe.

France, like many other countries, has not done a good job of integrating the immigrants who were necessary for the country's development and their French children. And in order to prevent things like this from happening again, it's going to take more than quick fixes and band-aids. But in the end, that's the problem: no one pays attention to these people until it's too late; no one talks very seriously about reforming state housing, fighting against discrimination, bettering education and raising employment in these areas until they're already ablaze.

So while the electrocution of the two boys in Clichy-sous-Bois and Sarkozy's televised comments about taking out the trash probably ignited the riots, the fuel for them has been laying around dormant for a while.

In his article about the incidents in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Alex Duval Smith of The Observer quotes a youth of Algerian descent whose opinions are lucid and, unfortunately have a certain logic about them:

'He [Sarkozy] should go and fuck himself,' says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. 'We are not germs. He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late.'

HB's views are clear. 'The only way to get the police here is to set fire to something. The fire brigade does not come here without the police, and the police are Sarkozy's men so they are the ones we want to see.'

All the dustbins were burnt long ago. 'Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them. How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office.' ...

Jobs? 'There are a few at the airport and at the Citroën plant, but it's not even worth trying if your name is Mohamed or Abdelaoui.' ...

When asked if he considers himself integrated in France, HB claims that is not his aspiration. 'I am not sure what the word means. I am part of Mille-Mille and Seine-Saint-Denis, but I am not part of Sarkozy's France, or even the France of our local mayor whom we never see. At the same time, I realise I am French, because when I visit my parents' village in Algeria that doesn't feel like home either.'

After another night of rioting, which has spread to cities all over France and even to Belgium and Germany, and as the government is implementing a state of emergency and a curfew , it is important to take a serious look at the incidents instead of listening to news outlets that can't get their geography right or those who are calling this the intifada in France based on a two hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle airport.

First of all, Paris is not burning. Certain suburbs throughout the country are at night, but if I didn't read the newspaper or listen to the radio, I wouldn't even know that there were any riots, because, for the most part, nothing has changed in the actual city limits of Paris.

Second, this is not a religious conflict. This is a socio-economic and a racial problem, much like the LA riots in 1992 (58 dead) and the Watts riots in 1965 (32 dead). Neither is it a question of one country occupying another, so the parallels of the Palestinian intifada are ludicrous at best.

The events of the last 11 nights are complicated and seemingly contradictory, but no more so than any other instance of collective violence: there is no real ideological underpinning, but the riots are more than just senseless violence; people are angry at a country that has provided poorly for them and put up barriers against their pursuit of happiness, so they burn their own neighborhoods; the state will punish those it catches in acts of lawlessness, but its attention has been grabbed in a way that peaceful protests and letter writing campaigns have not been able to accomplish.

Robert Darnton wrote an article called Reading a riot in the New York Review of Books shortly after the LA riots, in which he discussed a book about the Paris riots of 1750.

Despite their obvious differences, one can pick out plenty of similarities between Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750: the previous histories of rioting, the settings of poverty, the influx of immigration, the prevalence of homelessness, the influence of gangs, the resentment of oppression, and the provocation of police, who made a show of force and then, with the threat of confrontation, withdrew. If George Bush will not do as Louis XV, Daryl Gates would make a credible Berryer. And the folklore of the blood bath is no more extravagant than the myth about AIDS as an epidemic unleashed by whites to destroy blacks.

But even if they run parallel, the comparisons do not lead anywhere, because the past does not provide pre-packaged lessons for the present. The rioters of Paris inhabited a mental world that differed completely from that of the rioters in Los Angeles; and the history of rioting demonstrates the need to understand mentalités in all their specificity rather than to search for general models. Riots have meanings as well as causes. To discover what they mean, we must learn to read them, scanning across centuries for patterns of behavior and looking for order in the apparent anarchy that explodes under our noses. We have a long way to go; but if we ever get there, we may be able to make sense of what has seemed to be the most irrational ingredient of our civilization: "popular emotion."

Likewise in Paris today, there are parallels to be seen. Nicolas Sarkozy, the current French Minister of the Interior, would probably empathize with Gates and Berryer (the chiefs of police in Los Angeles in 1992 and Paris in 1750, respectively). But we must be careful about blindly applying one historical event upon another similar one, and avoid at all costs forcing two dissimilar ones together to suit an ideology or a strained narrative, like so many American bloggers seem intent on doing with their imaginary clash of civilizations.

The problem here is a complex one, and it has no easy solutions. Second and third generation children of immigrants from Africa and Asia have not been integrated into French society, and many opportunities remain out of their reach, due to a vicious cycle of a lack of governmental integration efforts and communautarisme or ghettoization. At this point, it's not really important which came first; they both feed on each other. This is illustrated in a lack of representation of a group of people that is French and makes up around 12% of France's population. There are very few minority politicians and, besides comics and rappers, I can only think of one Arab who is regularly on television: Rachid Arhab, who is often referred to as Rachid l'Arabe.

France, like many other countries, has not done a good job of integrating the immigrants who were necessary for the country's development and their French children. And in order to prevent things like this from happening again, it's going to take more than quick fixes and band-aids. But in the end, that's the problem: no one pays attention to these people until it's too late; no one talks very seriously about reforming state housing, fighting against discrimination, bettering education and raising employment in these areas until they're already ablaze.

So while the electrocution of the two boys in Clichy-sous-Bois and Sarkozy's televised comments about taking out the trash probably ignited the riots, the fuel for them has been laying around dormant for a while.

In his article about the incidents in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Alex Duval Smith of The Observer quotes a youth of Algerian descent whose opinions are lucid and, unfortunately have a certain logic about them:

'He [Sarkozy] should go and fuck himself,' says HB, who was born in France of Algerian parents. 'We are not germs. He said he wants to clean us up. He called us louts. He provoked us on television. He should have said sorry for showing us disrespect, but now it is too late.'

HB's views are clear. 'The only way to get the police here is to set fire to something. The fire brigade does not come here without the police, and the police are Sarkozy's men so they are the ones we want to see.'

All the dustbins were burnt long ago. 'Cars make good barricades and they burn nicely, and the cameras like them. How else are we going to get our message across to Sarkozy? It is not as if people like us can just turn up at his office.' ...

Jobs? 'There are a few at the airport and at the Citroën plant, but it's not even worth trying if your name is Mohamed or Abdelaoui.' ...

When asked if he considers himself integrated in France, HB claims that is not his aspiration. 'I am not sure what the word means. I am part of Mille-Mille and Seine-Saint-Denis, but I am not part of Sarkozy's France, or even the France of our local mayor whom we never see. At the same time, I realise I am French, because when I visit my parents' village in Algeria that doesn't feel like home either.'