Zut Alors!

The rioting hasn't ended in France? How can that be? The media and the French authorities have declared the rioting over. Things are calming down (just to the new normal).

Problem is, they've resigned themselves to a certain level of violence, and anything below this arbitrary figure means that it's just background noise.

That background noise included firebombing churches. One a day, every day for past 12 days. Here's the list of churches torched (while it's written in French, Profané means that those locations were vandalized, and those churches firebombed are denoted as Incendiaire). Why isn't this a bigger story? Considering the lengths that the media reports have gone through to say that the rioting has nothing to do with religion, the choice of targets has clear religious overtones.

A few people are noting the demographics of Europe and foresee even more violence to come. This article by Alvaro Vargas Llosa is also quite insightful.

One would think 6,000 charred cars, the destruction of countless shops and other types of property in 300 towns and the horror France has gone through would persuade the French to question their model. However, the response of the government and the reaction of the French elites indicate otherwise.

We're closer to 10,000 cars at this point in time, and Llosa doesn't comment on the religious component but he does seem to recognize that the French simply are trying to wish away the problems.

UPDATE:
More than 40 schools and creches were destroyed or damaged in the course of the rioting to date. And they're finding new excuses as to why the schools and nurseries were attacked: it was simply expedient for the rioters and easier than trying to attack a station, museum or theater. How comforting.

UPDATE:
More rioting in Lyon last nite. This time, the rioting is being blamed on the release of Beaujolais Nouveau. That's right. Georges Duboeuf must be doing the spins in the bathroom as his cash cow is being blamed for today's rioting. Way to go!

Friday's violence broke out after between 2,000 and 3,000 people, mostly students, left bars where they had been celebrating the arrival of the popular French wine, which traditionally goes on sale on the third Thursday of November.

Youths attacked firemen called out to attend an injured person and began to throw missiles at police who arrived to back up the firemen. Wine bottles were thrown from apartment windows.

"Some of them were very politicized. Drunk on new wine, they wanted to make a revolution, a 'red Beaujolais' revolution," Commissioner Jean-Claude Borel Garin, the local police chief, told Reuters.

I can see it now:

Nothing says riot like Beaujolais Nouveau.
Beaujolais Nouveau, the choice for rioters young and old.
Beaujolais Nouveau, when you absolutely, positively have to riot, accept no substitutes.