Work Trip to Paris, France - 8th to 9th November 2005

Was in Paris on November 8th and 9th, for a couple of work meetings. When telling anybody this, before or afterwards, the universal reaction was "oh my god, aren't there loads of riots there?", or "did you see lots of rioting and burnt out cars?".

This would suggest that there certainly are things going on, but you really wouldn't notice that if you go to the centre of Paris (or probably any other big city in France). All of the slums are outside the big cities, and physically separated from them, so you can walk around Paris and be completely unaware that anything of this magnitude is going on in the country. French TV news is also very quiet on the subject, they are hardly reporting anything at all about it.

I guess that's precisely why these riots are happening, if the whole of Paris can remain completely oblivious to, and unaffected by, anything that happens in the poor suburbs and immigrant communities just outside the city. Most of the country doesn't notice or care about these people normally - that's exactly what's causing these riots. But its also a reason why nothing positive will happen as a result - the majority of France doesn't care.