France’s odd New Year tradition: Counting torched cars (Hmm, always attributed to those mysterious media culprits: 'youths.' Same as the youths who torched London and sometimes torch places like Detroit and Los Angeles?)

France’s odd New Year tradition: Counting torched cars




French Interior Minister Manuel Valls held a press conference on Wednesday to report on crime over New Year, and gave the most highly anticipated statistic: the numbers of cars torched during the celebrations.

Highlighting that January 31 was “one of the year’s most important events in terms of pubic security”,Valls also addressed the deaths of three people who were stabbed in separate incidents. The minister then delivered the tally: 1,067 cars were torched across the country the previous evening.

Vehicle arson – mostly confined to disadvantaged suburbs near big cities – has become an embarrassing tradition of bringing in the New Year in France. Furthermore, the public expects to be informed exactly how many cars were set alight, in what could be seen from abroad as a unique and bizarre annual ritual. . . .

Observers who have studied urban violence in France say youths from poor communities, burn cars as a form of protest against the state, who they blame for their lack of economic opportunities. . . .

http://www.france24.com/en/20140102-france-car-burning-new-year-tradition-urban-violence-media/