Sunshine and Light

Riot Count

From the BBC:

8,973 cars burnt
2,888 arrests
20 nights of riots
Source: National police

This article also notes:

Nationwide, 163 cars were burnt - almost down to the levels seen before the riots began last month.

Good grief...I don't know how many cars are burned in the US on a nightly basis, but doesn't that seem a bit high? C'mon, just a bit?

Really amazing overall. I'm still fascinated that this isn't getting more play in the US press. C'mon, after France's nasty comments about New Orleans, doesn't anyone feel at least a little bit of schadenfreude?

And this whole thing made me giggle...

Meanwhile, senior officials from President Jacques Chirac's centre-right party have suggested that polygamy is one factor in the riots, arguing children of polygamous families have less of a father figure and are more likely to live in overcrowded conditions.
"Polygamy... prevents people being educated as they should be in an organised society. Tens of people cannot live in a single flat," Bernard Accoyer, leader of the Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) in the National Assembly lower house of parliament, told French radio.
Polygamy is illegal in France but until 1993, it was possible for immigrants to bring more than one wife from their home country to join them.

Surely they aren't suggesting that there are enough polygamist in France to cause this? Is Chirac's group saying that polygamists who moved to France over 12 years ago responsible for the riots? If that's the reason, why aren't there riots in the countries that these people moved from?

It couldn't be ... France?

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 3:43 AM