Americans and the French Riots

I thought the German commentary on the French riots was bad -- but that was before I had a look at opinion pages in the U.S.

The right-wing pundits, which seems to be most of the American pundits these days, are pointing their fingers at 1) Islam, 2) 14 years of French Socialist government in the '90s, 3) the French welfare state

Incredible.

Quickly to each point:

1) The vast majority of rioters in France were Muslims (though not all of them). The question is, what's the connection between their religious faith and their looting? The vast majority of rioters in Cincinatti (does anyone remember Cincinatti?!) and before that L.A. were Christians, but nobody blamed the Baptist Churches. These are angry, bored teenagers, not religoius zealots.

What's more, the leading French Muslim clerics issued fatwas early on calling for the rioting to stop. But you'd never know that from reading American papers.

2) France has not had a Socialist President since 1995. Blaming Mitterand for the Paris riots is like blaming Eisenhower for the 1968 riots: Not completely implausible, but you'd need to argue your case.

What's striking in retrospect is that there WEREN'T riots during Mitterand's time, and that this has at least something to do with the Socialists' relatively decent (though clearly inadequate) efforts to reach out to constituencies in the projects and to support social equality.

French Conservatives turned their back on these policies long ago.

Which brings me to the dumbest of the dumb Conservative arguments on the French riots: That the riots are the consequence of expensive welfare programs, which stymied French economic growth and produced mass unemployment in the projects.

3) Who woulda thunk that there are so many Marxists among American Conservative writers today? How else to explain these constant displays of crude economic determinism?

Yes, yes, yes, the French have anemic growth rates, and America, America has BIG, lusty, manly growth rates. The French have high unemployment nationwide. America has lowwwww unemployment nationwide.

But the problem is this: French unemployment in the banlieus is not significantly higher than in American inner-cities. Consider the fact that the French poor get subsidized housing, health care, and public transportation, whereas the American poor get mostly bubkas, and the economic explanation for why their cities are burning and ours ain't falls apart.

The other possibility of course is that the economic determinists are right, and it's really only a matter of time before American inner cities start burning (again) as well. If that happens, I wonder where our punditocracy will place the blame. Clinton's welfare policies of the '90's? The democratically-controlled Congresses of the Reagan era? Sister Souljah? Bart Simpson? SpongeBob SquarePants?

I gotta stop reading the papers.