NBC: In France, a melting pot melts down

The first death as a result of the violence was reported on Monday. With last night being the eleventh consecutive night of violence, is there any end in sight to the rioting?
It still has the feeling of a situation that’s snowballing. According to French police, attacks were reported in 274 towns overnight Sunday into Monday. That’s in France alone, but we know that other European nations such as Germany and Belgium reported unrest as well.  

That said, there is a feeling that whatever public support the rioters may have among their communities, now that lives are being lost, that public support could go away.   

Among the immigrant community, there is a certain faction that seems to be saying that the violence is OK because it has raised important issues and that this is the only way to get their voices heard.  

But at the same time, in the last week we’ve seen leaders within the communities in the housing projects, family members and Muslim clerics begging for an end to this violence.

There were silent protests last week by parents' groups in two of the Paris suburbs begging their own children publicly to stop doing what they are doing.  So, there is not universal support for these riots within these immigrant communities.   

But unfortunately, youth, exuberance and hot tempers seem to be winning the day.

I don’t think that anyone expects this to end tonight or anytime in the immediate future, at least not coming to an abrupt end.  

The violence trickled up to this level, in the same way that it is now spreading out across the country.  But there are not enough police officers to clamp down on every inch of the country and to stop the rioting.

Also, these aren’t massive riots with thousands of people protesting in one specific location. These are small roving bands of youth who four, five or six at a time go into an area and strike with Molotov cocktails and move out quickly.

In most cases they have purposefully avoided confrontations with the police, which makes them hard to catch and hard to stop.

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