Wampum

La nuit du jeudi 3 au vendredi 4 novembre -- More that 500 cars were burned in the Paris region (Ile-de-France), but also outside of the capital region, 7 in Dijon, 9 in Seine-Maritime and 8 in Bouches-du-Rhône. A total of 78 persons were arrested overnight.

Dominique de Villepin, premier ministre and candidat à l'élection présidentielle (UMP) in 2007, is making a show of being open to dialog. The Mayors of the suburbs, from both UMP and PS (right and left, resp.), aren't happy with happy talk about quick fixes. They want more money for education, associations, and community policing rather than flying squads of CRS.

Nicolas Sarkozy, ministre de l'intérieur and candidat à l'élection présidentielle (UMP) in 2007, has called the protesters "racaille" [scum] that need to be "nettoyer au Kärcher". Karcher is a manufacturer of pressure washer. The translation to American is "time for dogs and firehoses". In the lexicon of French politics "nettoyage" belongs to the extreme right, it resonates to the "nettoyage" practiced by les parachutistes français in the Battle of Algiers. And of course that has the immediate effect of reminding everyone that they too can hum the "tic toc" sound track to that film, and that the extreme right of 40 years ago is the extreme right of today.

Its all rather American at the moment. You've got de Villepin doing the vacant Bush Katerina Week of happy talk, and Sarkozy demoting every Parisian of North African or Sub-Saharan African origin or descent under the age of 30 from citizen of the Republic to looting, sniping, arabo-muslo-afro colored, non-French hooligans.

With the added bonus that de Villepin and Sarkozy are already competing for the UMP's spot in the 2007 presidential race.

Update: The 3/4 number is now over 600, with 500 in Ile-de-France, up from 315 the night of 2/3, with 150 in Seine-Saint-Denis. The effect outside of Ile-de-France is now 80 vehicles burned, mostly at Côte-d'Or (Bouches-du-Rhône) and also Seine-Maritime. In addition to the private vehicles burned, 27 buses burned at the Trappes depot, and there were fires at several public buildings (schools, town halls, police stations) and some commercial sites. There was a major fire overnight in Paris which is unconnected to the conflict, so a restatement of damages excluding a furniture factory/warehouse is pending.

I've changed the title, this one is more nuanced to the root causes, and Le Monde is (finally) running this as a political story, played out in part within the UMP's who's-after-Chirac context, and in part in the modalities-of-policing-is-always-political and state-vs-abandoned-by-state contexts.