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The fires of disintegration
Niall Ferguson

November 7, 2005

WHICH WOULD you rather have in your capital city: a terrorist attack in the center or a weeklong riot on the outskirts? After the experience of last July, most Londoners would probably be tempted to opt for the latter. The damage inflicted by the Tube and bus bombings far exceeds the cost of the recent mayhem in Paris' eastern suburbs.

On the other hand, the perpetrators of the 7/7 bombings could be counted on the fingers of one hand. By contrast, no one knows just how many young men took to the streets of Paris last week, but there were certainly hundreds. Britain and France face roughly the same problem at the moment. But there is good reason to think that France's is bigger.

Just what is the problem? Nicolas Sarkozy, the brazenly ambitious French interior minister, denounced the rioters as "scum" and "thugs," having earlier vowed to "clean up" the areas where the violence took place.

This was the cue for his foes on the left to blame the trouble on Sarkozy's heavy-handed approach to policing. Meanwhile, his foes on the right pointed the finger of blame at immigration. After all, the cars are burning in suburbs where immigrant communities predominate.

Sarkozy is, in fact, engaged in a clever piece of political triangulation. Having already bid for immigrants' support with offers of affirmative action programs and votes for noncitizens who are long-term residents, he now needs to send a signal to the French right that he also knows how to be tough. The real question is whether this mix of carrots and sticks is a credible cure for a divided city.

The problem is not immigration per se but a failure of integration. France has the highest foreign-born population of any European country â€â€