We are always reading about how the French are politically engaged, how the life of France is subject to informed, robust, open debate by everyone from the philosophe to the livreur. Yet France remains politically stagnant -- the same problems, the same failed programs, the same bromides from the same politicos, the same-old same-old year after year. Why is this?

Perhaps because, among other things, the French are not well informed on the issues.

A WARNING ON FRENCH ELECTIONS

PARIS September 26, 2006 (IHT/Reuters) - Warning that riots can erupt again in France's troubled suburbs, France's minister for equal opportunities, Azouz Begag [ministre délégué à la Promotion de l’égalité des chances], is urging politicians not to link the issues of crime and immigration during the presidential election next year.

"A spark can set fire again in France's suburbs, in one month, two months," he said in an interview Monday.

Begag, the son of Algerian immigrants, said that there had been some improvements in the suburbs since last autumn, when protesters - many of them descendants of African immigrants - set thousands of cars ablaze to protest discrimination and unemployment. But he added that France still lacked equality.

"Every time you are asking the questions of security and immigration before an election, it's a danger for the country. It's a dangerous mixture."

Begag, a sociologist who has written numerous books about poverty and who criticized Sarkozy last year for his tough handling of the riots, said discussion of the immigration issue had to wait.

Perhaps the French cannot themselves bear the scrutiny of their own critical powers. To spare them, the government -- here in the person of M. Begag, his function following his name -- seeks to circumscribe the debate.

Then again, perhaps the the French are not political sophisticates at all. Perhaps the French are a benighted polity whose political philosophy can be neatly crayoned on a placard and whose strength of argument consists of massing on the barricades. Perhaps, as M. Begag's caution suggests, the French are a volatile political mob easily influenced, easily swayed to violence.

PFFT (What is this?): Truth threatens havoc 4 | Stunted empty debate 4 | Rayonnement français 0