Hot in the City

France is nearly back to normal. Only about 200 cars were torched overnight.

Some 200 cars were torched and 80 people arrested overnight, fewer than the 365 vehicles set alight on Monday and the 730 cars ignited on Sunday in the hours following the right-winger’s defeat of Royal.

Protests turned violent yesterday in Paris and in the second city of Lyon while a UMP party office was set on fire in the town of Villeurbanne, near Lyon.

Sarkozy, a tough-talking former interior minister, is hated by many in the high-immigrant suburbs after he described young delinquents as "rabble" and for his stance on law and order and immigration.

The new president will have a busy schedule when he begins his ambitious bid to overhaul France’s lacklustre economy. He has vowed to cut taxes for the wealthy, trim unemployment and curb the power of the country’s powerful unions.

I have a quibble over the Monday tally, as I've seen other reports putting the figure at 500 cars torched. These figures also omit damage done to other properties - including businessses and buses.

UPDATE:
Rioters played cat and mouse with police in Paris and elsewhere.

UPDATE:
No Pasaran reports that university students have voted to preemptively strike against the Sarkozy government and the possibility that he might bring about changes to the employment law. From Reuters:

Around 500 students voted to support the strike action and protesters immediately blocked access to the Tolbiac annexe of the Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne university.

"There were no courses and pickets have been set up after the vote," said a spokesperson for the student union.

Conservative leader Sarkozy was elected president on Sunday, promising economic and social reforms that have alarmed many trade unionists.

The higher education minister, Francois Goulard, called on the head of the Paris I site to make sure university courses continued and to guarantee access to the Tolbiac buildings.

"It is totally unacceptable that an extremist minority, showing their scorn for democracy, should try to oppose the enactment of the president of the republic's program," Goulard said in a statement.

Sarkozy has promised to make higher education reform a priority and wants to introduce a law before the end of the summer to give universities more autonomy, handing them power to hire and fire staff, set salaries and manage their assets.

The folks who are going on strike have no idea what exactly will be enacted, and are opposed to change simply because it means change. No one knows what the actual legislation will bring, or how it will affect all those who are going on strike (or thinking about it), but they've decided to strike in any event.

They aren't even bothering to give the Sarkozy government a chance. Figures.