Rioting is one of the least effective ways of conducting political protest. The media will report what their owners want them to, which is usually heavily biased if not blatantly untrue. There are nearly always elements that will use a riot situation to further their own criminal ends. Running amok with your mates burning cars and smashing windows is a lot of fun compared to everyday life on a housing estate. The problem is that things get out of hand and people get hurt.

I don’t believe that all police are thugs and a free target for petrol bombs. They do a lot of good, catching criminals and stuff. I believe that the vast majority of police feel that they are doing something important by protecting innocent people, at least when they start their careers.

The problem is not police violence neither is it racial segregation. These are only symptoms of a sick society. If you want people to throw away their lives by playing the consumer/worker game you need more than a carrot. You need a whip called unemployment. To keep down the cost of labour 4 to 10% unemployment rate seems to be the optimal level. The trick is to make the lives of the unemployed worse than the lives of those working till they’re old and knackered in jobs they hate. It seems to be affective, I mean McDonalds doesn’t appear to have recruiting problems and that’s strange isn’t it.

What we have to do is neither to condemn or condone what’s happening in France. Though I must admit burning cars always warms my heart a bit. What we need to do is find another way of living and running our economies that doesn’t require repressing poor people and destroying the environment. If what’s happening in France can help people realise this need to restructure society then some good can be said to have come from an otherwise tragic course of events.