La Belle France est en Flammes

Further to my blog here are new reports from France are that rioting has spread from Paris to other towns including Dijon and Marseilles.

The perpetrators are second and third-generation immigrant youths feeling cheated France has done nothing to provide liberté, equalité and fraternité.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Dom De Villepin the PM has called for a stop to the rioting and 'a plan for the suburbs'. His call for (yet another) "umpteenth" plan has been decried by hamstrung Mayors who at at their wits end.

The schadenfreude is almost palpable and certainly exquisite. Race Riots across France on the watch of (presided over?) the US's would be tormenters De Villepin and Chirac. Makes New Orléans' so called race troubles a mere bagatelle.

More troubling for me and the french is the suggestion that 40 years of inaction by Chirac, Mitterand, d'Estaing, Pompidou, de Gaulle - the trumpeters of La Cinquième République Française - has meant three generations of migrant children feel so disenfranchised and not part of the state they will destroy its materiel.

Perhaps the worst of it all is that the response from the Politicians is to turn the whole catastrophe into a right vs left tilt at the next Presidency - where it is likely the Right will align with Sarkozy (the interior minister) and the left with De Villepin.

p.s. An interesting point in writing this blog how many french roots in words I used - even when not trying.

p.p.s A closing thought - mandating reduced working hours hasn't created the jobs eh.