Some atheists celebrate Passover. Others celebrate Christmas and others celebrate Ramadan. Still others have Hindu shrines in their homes. When people refer to Muslims they include the atheists who celebrate Ramadan and have relatives who keep Halal. They refer to people who come from (or whose ancestors come from) places where Islam is the predominant religion and where Arabic was one of the predominant languages when their predecessors’s emigrated. Okay?

Your third question was particularly objectionable. “What essential information do you provide if you stick a label on these rioters that you cannot prove?” You are watching a riot. You couldn’t prove anything the next morning. Why did you ask this question?

One reason I don’t trust Reuters on this subject is that the same reason I don’t trust most of the press. Over 90 percent of US reporters polled voted for Gore in an election that went 50-50. Reporters are not representative of the populace, and their prejudices must be controlled for.

Another is problems like the great Photo-shopping problem with pictures from Lebanon. The Jenin fraud. Another is the accuracy problems with stories from Iraq where curiously all the stories discovered to be false are slanted in one direction. Another is the persistent failure of Reuters to label Palestinian actions as violations of the Geneva Conventions. These issues add up to a perceived pro Moslem slant.

Now maybe you will answer the questions.

It’s interesting that none of those readers who strongly criticised us in emails for not writing “Muslim riots” has come out publicly here with a convincing argument for using the religious tag. I wonder why. As Amir wrote, “mmm… We must investigate.”

Amir rightly noted that this unrest doesn’t happen in “French suburbs.” I assume he means “mostly white” suburbs. But the residents of the poor suburbs are mostly French citizens, too, so the simple “French versus immigrants” tags are tricky, too. Your point about who benefits from the system and who doesn’t is very pertinent as well. These are factors in the feeling of discrimination that people in these “hot” neighbourhoods complain about.

There is an interesting phenomenon in the landscape of French social unrest that also challenges the view that these should be called “Muslim riots.” If you ask which city in France has the most Muslims, most French will say Marseille. Since there are no official religious or ethnic statistics here, it’s hard to say for sure. But it is certainly a city with a large population of immmigrant background, many of them from majority Muslim countries.

So why, during the riots of 2005 that spread across the country, was Marseille relatively quiet? Why didn’t poor Muslims there riot out of control like their co-religionists in the northern Paris ‘burbs? One important element that’s different down there is that the poor neighbourhoods are within the city, not parked out in the fields somewhere far from the centre where the jobs are. That means they’re less isolated from the rest of the city. City officials and neighbourhood leaders said at the time that the city’s geography apparently helped keep the temperatures lower there.

Forgot to ask the author: hidden agenda? Lies elsewhere? Is that a pun?

“Must investigate,” says Amir, tongue-in-cheek, presumably, as the first comment on this page.

Hmmmm. Question: Could it be that “French” suburbs are made up of people benefiting from a century or two of French colonialism? As opposed, for example, to those whose countries have been systematically ravished, e.g. non-white boys?

I totally agree with Tom Heneghan’s comments.
The riots over the week may have happened in Muslim dominated areas, but clearly one can’t say that those areas are 100 percent muslim populated.

Also it was not the case of Muslims going on a rampage for their demands.
The riots are clear example of how precarious the situation is in Paris’ poor neighbourhoods.
It is a due to economic and social issues plaguing those areas and has got nothing to do with any particular religion.