Although they never fail to take us aback, French riots have followed the same distinct pattern ever since protests broke out in the Eastern suburbs of Lyon in 1981, an episode known as the “summer of Minguettes”: a young person is killed or seriously injured by the police, triggering an outpouring of violence in the affected neighbourhood and nearby. Sometimes, as in the case of the 2005 riots and of today’s, it is every rough neighbourhood that flares up.
Throughout the past 40 years in France, urban revolts have been dominated by the rage of young people who attack the symbols of order and the state: town halls, social centres, schools, and shops.
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