RODERICK T. LONG: Some People Push Sideways. [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]
David Beito (see here and here) identifies the French welfare state as a cause of the current Paris riots.
I think the French police state also bears some of the blame; see the articles by Laurent Lvy and Antoine Germa here, and commentary by Brad Spangler here, here, and here.
As in the United States, so likewise in France, class oppression employs not only the carrot of welfare but the stick of police brutality: dependence is rewarded and independence punished.
Paris is a sparkling jewel ringed by squalid slave pens; the inmates of the suburbs are quite right to be furiously angry, but unfortunately they have no idea how their anger might be constructively expressed – so they express it destructively instead, by beating and looting the innocent. (Which from the French government’s standpoint is probably just as well. While it can’t welcome the prospect of mass violence, it would surely find the prospect of mass nonviolence still less appealing.)
Well, clueless and futile political violence has a long history in the City of Light. [Liberty & Power: Group Blog]
I note that the reports I've seen mention considerable destruction of government property, so perhaps their anger is being better directed than, say, in the LA riots.
1:56:16 PM 
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