Remember those ubiquitous "unidentified youths" of France (and here and here, et al.)? Well, it appears they have been identified for purposes of canvassing votes. They are "ethnic Arab and black African".

FRENCH POLITICIANS STRUGGLE
TO RELATE TO THE ALIENATED
Presidential Hopefuls Struggle
To Win Over Ethnic Groups

PARIS December 14, 2006 (IHT) - The conference was supposed to be a day of healing, a way for Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister who wants to be president, to rid himself of his image as the enemy of France's ethnic Arab and black African communities.

The gathering, titled "The Minister of the Interior Welcomes the Youth," was envisioned as a way to reach out to those poor and alienated groups. But no sooner had the invitation-only event in the ministry's reception hall begun Wednesday than Sarkozy came under attack.

"When the minister calls people 'thugs,' it doesn't help us, because we cannot avoid feeling that we're being targeted," said Malik Meraoumia, an ethnic Arab businessman from Amiens. He added, "What he did, he split France in two. The impression I have is there's the France of the suburbs and there's the rest."

France was long split in M. Meraoumia's two before Sarko. And just what does M. Meraoumia suggest calling the marauding identity-less youth that practice their thuggery in France?

"When you fire real bullets at police, you're not a 'youth,' you're a thug."

Sarko,
plain-talking last fall
November 2, 2005 (BBC)

These youths have since progressed to more organized thuggery. It seems to us that if M. Sarkozy is at fault, the fault is lenity not severity.

As for Royal's campaign, the Socialist Party in the "93" postal code — the Seine-Saint-Denis area that includes most of Paris's poor suburbs — unveiled an anti-Sarkozy poster campaign this month. Its message was that if residents of the suburbs stayed away from the polls, as they have tended to do in the past, they would end up with Sarkozy as president.

The Socialists hope to make M. Sarkozy the issue in the banlieues. The issues in the banlieues are discrimination, neglect, and criminal carte blanche. M. Sarkozy is a smoke screen to cloud over Mlle. Royal's own no less harsh and no less poorly received prescriptions.

"We need a return to the heavy hand."

Ségo,
plain-talking this summer
PARIS June 3, 2006 (Guardian)

As we point out below, the disaffected prefer lies without hope to the mainstream parties' same-old same-old lies of hope. anti-semitism provides the feeble -- but unspoken -- nexus.

PFFT (What is this?): You knew that 5 | Rayonnement français 0