Now we're getting somewhere! After much looking into and investigation, fingerpointing and shopping the blame, France has finally identified those responsible for last year's riots.

It was the police.

POLICE TAKE THE BLAME FOR DEATHS THAT SPARKED RIOTS

PARIS December 7, 2006 (AFP) - A French internal police inquiry has severely criticised the police for failing to prevent the electrocution of two youths whose deaths touched off last year's riots, a lawyer said on Thursday.

According to Jean-Pierre Mignard, who represents the dead teenagers' families, a report carried out by the police investigation service IGS found the officers involved to have behaved "thoughtlessly, with surprising absent-mindedness".

... The boys' families on Wednesday launched additional legal action for the more serious count of "deliberately endangering another person's life," partly on the basis of the IGS report, their lawyer said.

M. Mignard cashes in.

We do not mean to blow off any procedural derelictions by the policemen, but the deaths of Ziad Benna (17) and Banou Traoré (15) still remain their own doing. They ran from police, trespassed in a power sub-station, and were electrocuted by misadventure. In each instance they acted as their own agents.

[The report] says due process would have been to alert the power provider Electricité de France, though it stresses even this may not have saved the youths' lives.

It's all very sad. A sad tale. But the vicitms are its authors. Not thoughtless police.

PFFT (What is this?): Officializing blame 3¾ | Rayonnement français 0