More unrest in France

[ryangti]

Residents of a Paris suburb are coming to grips with another night of unrest sparked by the death of a teen fleeing the police last Sunday night.
Its seems to happening quite a lot now and in the past but why so many times.
http://www.ksbw.com/video/20357511/index.html

[debonnaire]

yes, this is a recurrent problem here. although it was rather calm lately
... and this "riot" is small by the way....

the cause is simply this : boredom, rebellion and lack of respect for authorities.

i guess this mindset that was born from "May 68" has made offsprings...

Did those who made the pseudo-revolution of 68 had a good reason for it ?
Nope (Besides, the students were very often sons of bourgeois, not sons of modest workers).

The same goes here now, except it is not anymore sons of bourgeois. But no real reason either, except bored youth without any goal or reason who want to do their circus, for the sake of defying authorities. After all, it has been done before , so why not them ?

Added to this there is certainly a "ghetto" mindset in the suburbs. That is the way it can go , when people think they can not escape the fact they live in a suburb (and thus hate everyone for that), when in reality they have become mentally captive of this mindset with the years and the examples of their elder brothers.

So there is an important minority of people here who reject authority, and respect not governement, police, or schoolteachers, and in some cases even their parents. If only they respected their parents , but on the other hand the parents don't care for the future of their children either, because in any case they are given money even when they (the parents) don't want to work, even when their children riot riot everything.

One anecdote : Did you know that the worst riot that happened here in the last years was that bad only because eventually it turned out into a "challenge" between the youth of the different suburbs ?
Let me explain : so the youth of one suburb had confrontation with the police ( i guess not a lot of people remember now how it all started ), and this was broadcasted at the TV.
So the guys from other suburbs were jealous , and they tried to outdo what the others had done. So the riot which was small at the beginning became a challenge between youth groups of many different suburbs. They were only looking for the 'exploit' of their suburb being spoken of at the TV.

:0.02:

[Reef Badlaw]

Thanks, debonnaire... for your keen, fresh perspective on the topic. Bored, generally unemployed teens in most countries, view riots as a sort of 'festival'. -Sharing, meeting like-minded souls, escaping from the moment, being part of 'something bigger' than themselves, etc. The destruction of property is a meaningless, religiously-celebrative gesture.

[debonnaire]

You are right on Reef , that is a good definition/analysis :


Bored, generally unemployed teens in most countries, view riots as a sort of 'festival'. -Sharing, meeting like-minded souls, escaping from the moment, being part of 'something bigger' than themselves, etc. The destruction of property is a meaningless, religiously-celebrative gesture.

That would maybe make the subject of another topic (in the ethics/.../behavourial forum) , but just want to add that here in France the word « festive » is very often used, and by many different sorts of people.
So for some, it is riot ‘festivals’ (btw, at each New year eve there is the custom to burn hundred of cars in the bigger towns), for others it is the frantic need to be participant in all cultural events....
People are bored and empty, alas.