some interesting dinner points ...
paris is surrounded by a road called the booulevard peripherique -- it goes around paris in a circle; outside this road are the parisian suburbs - or the 'cites' -- all the riots that you hear about take place mainly in these suburbs to the north of paris ... there are some riots going on at the moment
at dinner i found out:
- a few years ago, a girl was thrown into a garbage can and burnt alive for not wearing a hijab in the street
- the police and firemen refuse to go into these suburbs and are scared to go into them because they fear they will be killed by rioters during times of riots
- during the last riots, the people in the suburbs lynched their local police station and burnt the library
- female circumsision goes on in these suburbs
there seems to be huge interracial problems in the french suburbs ... and our teacher explained it as a consequence of post colonialism ... apparently england has the same problem but france and england have handled it in different ways ...
*the french respond by attacking the problem. ie. banning religious symbols in schools (the french republic was founded on a strong belief in freedom FROM religion - france is not associated with any religion - not officially)
* england acquises very much to demands rather than confronting ie. racial discrimination laws/ building many mosques etc
