What's Old Is New Again

The French are dealing with yet more riots. It's been going on for a few days now, and things have already gotten ugly:

French media said some 150 youths armed with baseball bats fought around 250 police for four hours in Montfermeil north of Paris after the arrest of a youth suspected of attacking a bus driver, an incident witnessed by the local mayor Xavier Lemoine.

Youths smashed windows, hurled two petrol bombs at the town hall and stoned the mayor's home, the media reports said.

Seven police officers were slightly hurt in the violence, in which six youths were detained, police said. Three remained in custody.

"Around 100 hooded youths stoned my home shouting 'the mayor is a son of a bitch'," Le Monde newspaper quoted Lemoine as saying. "The clashes took place 50 meters (yards) from my home."

Lemoine, a married reserve naval officer with seven children, said he had been targeted after coming to help a bus driver being assaulted by youths who then recognized him.

The arrest of a suspect in the attack late on Monday triggered the violence, he said.

The mayor, whose home and family have previously been set upon, courted controversy last month when he banned unsupervised under-aged youths from gathering in groups in the town center. The order was later overturned by an administrative court.

Sounds like the French are in the depths of a quagmire.