As always, much of the violence was driven by mindless criminality mercifully directed mainly at vehicles and property, though there has been one death, and shots and petrol bombs have also been directed at the police.But beyond the reimposition of law and order, France must learn several broader lessons from these riots.
In a broad sense, the worst immigrant rioting ever seen in Italy — shocking here not only because of the anger of migrants, some of whom clashed with local residents, but also for the attacks on them by townspeople — cuts to the heart of the nation's difficult evolution from a place of emigrants to one of immigrants.
Hari suggests that while many people "couldn't relate to [immigrants] getting thrown out of the country, the riots rendered the broader context closer to home".
The topic of the broader interview had been Pussy Riot and Putin's unwillingness to commute the band's two-year prison sentence for "hooliganism," though it seems he took advantage of the orgy tangent to crack what AFP has termed a "Soviet-era" joke.
"Beyond their immediate impact on property and criminal convictions, the riots have had a broader impact by undermining social cohesion and entrenching negative attitudes toward minority groups (even though the public did not associate the riots directly with these groups).
Next year looks more challenging.The Arequipa riots were part of a broader wave of protests.
Second, there was broad agreement that the riots had little or nothing to do with Islam or the historical French presence in parts of the Islamic world.
On the same day, the parliament scheduled a referendum on broader autonomy for Crimea within Ukraine for May 25th, while riot police blocked the narrow isthmus connecting the Crimean peninsula to (and now separating it from) mainland Ukraine.
In September, the police shooting of a street vendor point blank in the head in broad daylight in the São Paulo neighborhood of Lapa prompted street protests and rioting.
Because earlier attempts to quell the rioting had failed, on January 13 Ben Ali appeared on national television and made broader concessions to the opposition, promising not to seek another term as president when his term ends in 2014.
