FRENCH STUDENTS VS FRENCH 'YOUTHS': Theodore Dalrymple, merciless observer of things French, notes that the current wave of student riots in that country in effect aims to keep in their place those immigrant "youths" who rioted last fall. In the suburbs of Paris, where the immigrants have been penned, unemployment for young people reaches 50 percent. However:
If there are sectors of the population in which the unemployment rate is half, it follows that there are sectors of the population in which the unemployment rate is less than a quarter. And what might those sectors be? Reader, you've guessed it: graduates from the universities, particularly the Sorbonne, where the privileged demonstrators -- who are demonstrating in generous solidarity with themselves --have done $1 million worth of vandalism, the most in the country.
The students are demonstrating for the continuation of their own protections and privileges once employed, as most of them soon will be. They do not wish employers to have the freedom to sack them, except at the cost of huge redundancy payments that the law currently grants them. Obliviously, of course, they are in effect also demonstrating for the continued segregation of the Arabs and the Africans.
Read the whole thing -- Darlymple's always worth it. UPDATE: Good grief. Even the BBC is wondering about the students.
1:17:15 PM 
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