Entre Les Murs

Paris Is Not Burning

After seeing the news on the Globe's site and others, I feel that I ought to provide a firsthand report of the riots in the suburbs of Paris. And, based on the questions that have been coming from home, clearly a breathless eyewitness account of carnage is expected. Alas, there has been no sign of problems here in the 16th. No mobs in the streets, no columns of oily smoke, no police on the street corners.

One of the friends with whom we had dinner last night works at the Canadian embassy and is involved in sending reports about the situation back to Ottawa; yet we all agreed that it might as well be on another continent for all that we're affected. It's certainly in the papers (although it got knocked off the front page of The Metro by the opening of Kirsten Dunst's latest movie), but not with any more than the usual journalistic disapprobation.

Of course, the degree to which most of the French are insulated from the bleak conditions and absent prospects of those living in the banlieue may be partly why they're rioting.

posted 8.11.05