From UPI... note the part I bolded.
French riots underscore deeper problems
By ELIZABETH BRYANT
PARIS, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- Six straight nights of clashes between French police and rioters in Paris-area housing projects are laying bare simmering discrimination and ethnic tensions lying just under the country's officially colorblind creed of liberty, equality and fraternity.
The riots have gone far beyond law-and-order tangles between youths hurling stones and Molotov cocktails and police responding with tear gas. Eighteen months before French presidential elections, they have taken on a raw political edge as they fuel partisan bickering and existing divisions within the ruling center-right Union for a Popular Movement party.
On Wednesday, French President Jacques Chirac waded into the fray for the first time, after keeping silent for nearly a week. At a ministerial meeting, Chirac appealed for firmness, but also for dialogue and respect in treating the largely ethnic North African-Muslim communities where the riots have taken place.
"We have to redouble our efforts to assure equal opportunities," Chirac added, touching on what activists say is a key root to the violence in communities where French citizens of immigrant origins remain second-class citizens in their own country.The clashes began after two teenage boys were accidentally electrocuted last Thursday as they tried to scale a wall in the gritty, Paris suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois. A public prosecutor said the boys believed police were chasing them. Police deny doing so.
Either way, the incident has sparked nightly riots that have since spread to other Paris-area suburbs. Helping fuel the riots has been the tough and controversial response of French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
Sarkozy -- who sparked outrage earlier this year by vowing to "clean out" another suburb rocked by ethnic violence -- blasted this week's rioters as "scum." His latest remarks have unleashed a tempest of indignation, with some of the shrillest criticism coming from opposition leftist lawmakers...
Sarkozy has since gone on the defensive, arguing that "scum" is not a vulgar word, and that he is a polite person.
The riots themselves are no laughing matter. France has a powder keg
on their hands. You can't have your crown city ringed with slums filled
with angry young people with no hope and expect things to go well. And
believe me, in America, we know a thing or two about inner-city riots.
