[lbo-talk] Marseille and the riots

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Nov 13 21:01:09 PST 2005


On Sun, 13 Nov 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:


> [perhaps the most surprising thing in this story is that in normal times,
> there are 5-10 car burnings a night]

I've seen that in many stories in many papers. It's generally quoted that before the riots the ring cities around Paris averaged 20-30 car burnings a night. The Times of London said there were 22,000 car burning in France this year nationwide before the riots started:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1869459,00.html

and supposedly this is why the authorities were slow to react -- they thought at first is was just a spike in normal life. Burning a car seems to have become something of a young male rite of passage in recent years. I'd love if someone could get ahold of something on this from a couple of years ago, preferably in French, that explained what it's all about. Does everyone's car have fire insurance there?

Michael



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