...du ‘problème des quartiers sensibles,’” online at http://www.lmsi.org. of the riots died. In discussions with my students, they said they were frustrated by the so-called “sociological” explanations they heard in...

...so tense that the government decided, after ten days, to apply a law which had been enacted in 1955, during the Algerian war, in order to implement a curfew, mainly...

...order, the rioters opposed the law and order of force. The two sides fought for the definition of the space where they actually opposed each other: is it part of...

...(http://www.recensement.insee .fr/RP99), a little quirky at times but a very rich source of data); and while it was carried out six years ago, the situation has probably not changed very...

...otherness and poverty go together, where unemployment among youth is far above the national average, are presented as conflict zones between civil society and the forces of order (the police),...

...of the local social order. Sometimes they make looting forays in off-limits commercial malls or even in the centers of big cities (calls for raiding the Champs-Elysées were often to...

...of an exclusionary social order are symptoms of deep-seated problems which have been festering for decades, above all poverty, unemployment and widespread ethnic discrimination. These problems have been staring French...

...workers. By subsidizing various social activities and resources—sometimes even quite generously—local and regional authorities helped to maintain order. Similarly, financial support given to “beur”4“Beur” is a French backslang word for...

...want to leave school (has obligatory schooling until age sixteen been abandoned?), and one hundred million euros in order to finance civic associations charged with maintaining social cohesion (associations whose...

...how best to divide the jobs among those seeking work. The “social model” comes at a heavy price. In fact, one can ask, as Tony Blair and others have done,...