Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?
Update: seemingly not
Update: Oh yeah!
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Les Riotes (or possibly "les riots", I really can't be bothered to check).
The prevailing opinion appears to be that the problem with the young French North Africans rioting in towns like Clichy-sur-Bois [1] is that "they have not integrated into French society", or possibly that "French society has not been able to integrate them", depending on which cote of the rue you're looking from.
What utter rot. These young men have got a political grievance, and they're expressing it by setting fire to things and smashing them up. What could be more stereotypically, characteristically French than that? Presumably they're setting fire to cars because they don't have any sheep and the nearest McDonalds is miles away. "French society is threatened by anarchy and lawlessness". I mean really. Everyone would do well to remember that this is France we're talking about, not Sweden or perhaps Canada.
In forthcoming weeks, I shall be applying similar analytical techniques to topics like "root and branch corruption is threatening the essence of Italian democracy" and "Muslim immigrants cannot fit into British society because they are insular, bigoted and sexually repressed".
[1] Twinned with Merthyr Tydfil, according to this site, how wonderfully apt. Merthyr is also full of short dark hairy men, members of a despised minority population and with twice the national unemployment rate.
Update: Neuilly-sur-Seine is apparently twinned with Windsor & Maidenhead. Now that one I admit is a bit less obvious.
this item posted by the management 11/08/2005 01:18:00 PM
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