As to the first question whether these are immigrant riots, it is worse than that: these are offspring (often second generation) of immigrant riots. That shows that the problem has been ignored for a very long time. What Artbrooks has mentioned about the statistics has helped the government (but not only them) to remain blind for too long.

Of course, it is about economic disadvantage and hopelessness as the main factors. Joblessness can be said sarcastically to be a 'hereditary disease' in these ghettos. But if the dividing line is not only defined by economics but also by origin, culture, religion and ethnic background then the riots usually becomes more violent. That economical disadvantage is not the only motivation of the rioters was shown clearly by the words of one of the youths being interviewed: Baghdad lies in Paris tonight.

Regarding the creation of ghettos: I don't know how it happens in France but I know how it happens in Germany. They are put there and they create it. In an already poor neighbourhood the rents are not very high and the houses are bad. You can get twice (or even more) as much rent as a house owner if you put 9 male Turkish workers into a three-room flat instead of a German family of 2+2. The other house owners see this with envy and greed and each time a German family leaves for whatever reason they increase the rent that much that only a large number of foreign workers together can pay.

With 9 young males in a three-room flat and a house owner with an eye to short-term profit and not to maintenance the houses and the neighbourhood get worse and worse. When the houses are really bad they are sold. The, say, Turkish workers by now have saved some money and some can afford to buy the houses. At this point, the neighbourhood actually improves. New shops and pubs run by Turkish people are created. The neighbourhood gets attractive for newly arrived Turkish people and some Germans (academics with no kids) who like that atmosphere.

People from such neighbourhoods rarely get jobs (like, in a completely different context, in Belfast, the employers don't have to ask for your background, they just know it when you tell them your address) for a variety of reasons. In Germany, the main reason is lack of knowledge of the language. Many of the youths from the ghettos have a worse education than youths from other parts of the town and have no future on the job market. They are disillusioned and have nothing to lose. That's a situation in which just any incident (or rumour) may start a riot.

What they have in France now could happen in other parts of Europe as well. It is the product of a failed policy of integration. Self-chosen segregation and rejection by the majority culture are the ingredients to which government inactivity is added.

Wolfgang