B E B E R E

There's been an awful lot of this going on, particularly in the past couple weeks. The relative lack of coverage compared to the fare jumper incident last Spring is kind of interesting. I guess it's not much of an issue as no one's trying to score a free train ride.

This teeny bit I can see for free in Le Monde tells me that for the third time in a week, rival gangs clashed. No injuries were reported, but there were 15 arrests. The fight started in a club in the 10th arrondisement and spilled out on the street. (The club was described as one "frequented by inhabitants of the suburbs to the north of the capital" - read: African.)

This snippet talks about fighting between the Def'Mafia (La Defense) and GDN (Gare du Nord) gangs after R & B night at a club in the 9th Arrondisement. Club patrons are described as being largely Sub-Saharan Africans dressed in American Rap Star (ghetto) style.

Le Figaro has a first person account by someone who participated in some of the recent gang fighting as well as an analysis on why the police are having such a difficult time with this. (I'm sure I'll get around to translating later - have my day job to contend with right now.)

La Liberation:

"In ten years, it'll all be resolved with gunshots. We're only a bit behind the United States."
(Ordinarily I don't bother with the French version of the Guardian's Anti-American fluff. However, given how things have been going in Dorchester and Roxbury lately, it's hard for me to find fault with this line.)

Efforts to coordinate anti-violence measures in Ile-de-France. (Uh oh).

Girls Enter the Fray.

The latest edition of Marianne's cover story questioned why the media in general chose not to cover the ongoing violence until just recently.

My parano self keeps thinking that this all goes against the preferred narrative of the new administration being Tough on Crime and keeping things under control, so folks would like to gloss over it. I hope I'm wrong.

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Of course (somewhat tangentially related), this doesn't do much to allay these feelings.