Paristan riots

From Denis Boyles in the NRO:

I've written about [the heatwave in Franch during the summer of 2003] often because 15,000 deaths by governmental negligence is what you call serious, social-crisis-wise. It's overlooked or ignored now, as it was then, because it's an cautionary tale embarrassing to the Left: It clearly illustrates what happens to you and your loved ones if you become accustomed to relying on the government — and especially the French one — to meet your personal responsibilities. The French learned then what Tocqueville knew long ago, that by the time you learn to depend on your government to save you, you're already a goner. [--apply that lesson to the hurricane victims]. The crisis of 2003 was not only a social crisis, for the Left, it was an ideological and spiritual one.

During that awful summer, as bodies choked morgues and doctors begged for help, Chirac said and did nothing for weeks — nothing at all, except to have his functionaries announce there was no crisis and punish those who said there was. After the crisis peaked, Chirac went on TV from his vacation home but only to tell the country not to worry. A year after the event, the health minister resigned and the government announced that in future heatwaves, everybody should go to the movies because they're air-conditioned. Otherwise, that most serious of social crises caused absolutely no visible change in French political life. A country that can shrug off manslaughter on a massive scale can easily overlook a few weeks of juvenile mischief. If they're smart, next year they'll just declare it a holiday. Or perhaps the French government will produce a typically Gallic remedy and ban the rioters' traditional headcoverings so we won't be able to tell the Muslims from the Marxists.

So far, the death toll from the rioting has mercifully light, unless you count heart attacks suffered by auto-insurance adjusters. Unlike the heatwave, which took place when most journalists and politicians were away on their summer holidays, the riots are being covered extensively. They are the kind of very special "social crisis" beloved by the Left. In fact, they're the only kind they really recognize. Packs of reporters visit the grim, gray suburbs where they see the big fires, the Muslim kids with their rocks and rifles, read the stats showing joblessness and segregation and pronounce the riots a major catastrophe.

Mostly right.