A curious French public wonders what is the group identity of the rambunctious "youths" romping across France to shouts of "[person unspecified] Akbar!"?

Day 4: No Clue Here

PARIS SUBURBS ERUPTS IN FOURTH NIGHT OF VIOLENCE

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France, October 31, 2005 (AFP) - Police clashed with angry youths in a Paris suburb for the fourth straight night, police said Monday, with accusations over a police teargas grenade thrown into a mosque set to exacerbate the situation further.

Day 6: No Clue Yet

YOUTH, POLICE CLASHES SPREAD TO SEVERAL PARIS SUBURBS

PARIS November 2, 2005 (AFP) - Gangs of youths in towns around Paris clashed with police and torched cars and trash cans on Tuesday night as violence that has plagued one poor suburb for almost a week spread around the French capital, police and local authorities said Wednesday. ...

There was less trouble overnight in Clichy-sous-Bois itself -- which has a large immigrant and Muslim population -- partly due to the heavy police presence there.

Hhmmm, something here about the good folk of Clichy-sous-Bois.

Day 11: No Jumpable Conclusions

SILENT TRIBUTE HELD FOR RIOTS' FIRST VICTIM

PARIS November 7, 2005 (AFP) - Some 200 people held a silent tribute on Monday to the first victim linked to the urban violence ripping through France, a 61-year-old man who died in hospital after being assaulted last week.

Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec was knocked into a coma last Friday by a young man wearing a hood as he was talking about the riots with a neighbour in a public housing estate in the northern Paris suburb of Stains.

His widow, Nicole, speaking after meeting Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, said of the aggressor: "I want these people punished."

VIOLENCE COULD ENDANGER ECONOMIC RECOVERY

PARIS November 7, 2005 (AFP) - Violent unrest in France for the past 11 days has left the country grappling to explain the wanton destruction of property and some economists and business leaders have begun to warn that the turmoil could imperil an economic recovery.

There is alarm for the country's tourism industry, concern about a decline in consumer confidence and a fall in foreign investment -- not to mention fears about the devastation of businesses and the impact of increased security costs if the situation worsens.

"This is exactly what the French economy didn't need," said Nicolas Bouzou, chief economist at Paris-based economics consultancy Xerfi.

Referring to the immigrant origins of much of the population in the areas hit by the violence, Parisot also said that business was "the best place for integration that anyone could imagine, perhaps even more so than football teams or rock bands."

So they're immigrants? Perhaps those beefy shirtless Poles who swarm over the French border.

In this extensive article cobbled up by three reporters, not one of them stumbled onto the common thread running through the disparate immigrant populations.

LES CITÉS: WHERE THE RIOTS COME FROM

Day 12: Something Here

Now here is the clue -- and very neatly done without once assaying the group identity of the rioting "youths".

SCHOLAR WARNS AGAINST ISLAMIC SPIN ON RIOTS

LONDON November 8,2005 (AFP) - From his current vantage point at Oxford University, Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan cautions against putting an Islamic spin to the unrest that has swept France's downtrodden surburbs.

In an interview with AFP, Ramadan said the French authorities will need to embrace a more sophisticated approach if they want to respond effectively to the rioting that has run for a dozen nights straight.

"In all that is happening, there are of course groups who are in it for pure vandalism, for wild violence," said the scholar, named by Time magazine as one of the leading thinkers of the 21st century [Time magazine also made this call.] but barred from the United States. [Huh? Yes, but not before being barred from France in 1996. Now why would that be?]

"We're in the process of losing a footing in the suburbs. Even so-called Muslim associations are more and more disconnected. The fracture is profound... We are seeing an Americanisation in terms of violence." [Oh my! It's the Americans.]

"Above all, one must not Islamisize the question of the suburbs," Ramadan stressed. "The question that France must answer is absolutely not a question of religion."

Asked where the roots of the malaise lie, Ramadan said the entire political class in France has been "blind" to what has been happening in the suburbs, with their unemployed youth of Arab and African origin and bleak high-rises.

Ramadan, the grandson of Hassan al-Bana, founder of the influentual Muslim Brotherhood movement in the 1920s, said there needs to be a return to order: "Violence is not a solution and sanctions must be taken against gangs."

It would also help to keep a lid on "counterproductive" speech, said Ramadan, who recalled interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy's description of the rioters as "scum".

"It's not by insulting one part of France that you can protect the other."

So, what are they? Immigrants? They're immigrants. Right?

Not one of the articles above can get pass the euphemisms "youths", "gangs", "gangs of youths", "groups of youths" [!], and "teenagers". That the "youths" are immigrant can only be surmised. That they are Muslim is just a guess.

Like the Venus di Urbino, the AFP advertises the very thing it seeks to hide.

PFFT (What is this?): Reportorial honesty 0 | Rayonnement français 0

Coming from an American, all I can say is that the term 'poetic justice' could hold no more power than the present. Reap what you sew Monsieur Villepin! Bon chance.

A curious French press wonders what is the group identity of the rambunctious "youths" romping across France to shouts of "[person unspecified] Akbar!"?

You almost had me - this is a trick question. There are no identifiable groups in France, and to believe otherwise you must be mistaken.

Perhaps those beefy shirtless Poles who swarm over the French border.

Yes, those Polish plumbers get up to every sort of bad. You just can't trust them.