Watch Where You Park Your Car

This week I've been asking the students to tell me what's going on. "Explain to me the situation in France," I say. Blank stares, confused looks. "The rioting," I say. Minds turning, "what is rioting?" someone asks. Finally some recognition. "Ohhhh, the burning of the cars!" The smart kids translate to the rest of the class and they'd be off. Shouting, jumping, slamming desks. "In English, please," I say, "and one at a time."

For two nights now, there has been "rioting" near Grenoble. I put it in quotes because I only know one person who actually saw anything and no one is acting concerned about it. The French are cool as cucumbers. And even though Grenoble is a small city (I can walk the width of it in 45 minutes) it appears that any unrest will stay within a one block radius. It appears.

The overall attitude from my students is not to worry and to stay away from Paris. And that the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, is a bad man. He's in charge of the national police force. In televised comments about the death of two boys running from the police two weeks ago, Sarkozy used street slang to refer to them. Imagine Dick Cheney calling angry, displaced Hurricane Katrina survivors "niggaz" and you get a pretty close comparison. Add a good dose of media hype and international attention and it's easy to see how anger spreads.

One class today told me only to worry if i own a car (apparently burning roller blades isn't on anyone's agenda) and that I should avoid the outskirts of town. They also said that there is alot of media hype. The only burning cars any student has seen was on TV. A large portion of my students live in "hot spots". And there is one near the school.

Which I visited Monday during my lunch break. It's called Mistral. It's a grouping of 5 or 7 high rises (maybe 12 stories tall) around a green square. It has a cafe, a small market, a hairdresser, a bakery, etc. About one third of the balconies have satellite dishes. It also features a fair share of anti-Sarkozy grafitti.

A rumor I heard last weekend had it that the rioting is being masterminded by a hidden source. The spreading to other cities is calculated, the weapons and supplies warehoused and waiting. The students and teachers at Lycee Vaucanson don't give this much validity. One student compared the spread of the rioting to a competition. If Lyon and Marseille want to gain some street cred, they have to out do each other and try to catch up with Paris. With a largely hated man in charge of quelling the riots, unemployment in low income neighborhoods as high as 50%, and images on television showcasing even the smallest disorder it looks like the game is on.