Is Paris Really Burning.... Or Have You Been Abused?

It looks like Paris is getting quite a bit of unwanted attention lately. Reading the press, both national and international, one gets the impression the French capital is under siege with riots exploding everywhere. We hear the banshee screams coming from the media pit: 'the worst civil strife since the 60s', 'riots propagating like wildfire', and other tasteful headlines. Bah, humbug. I spent a couple of weeks in Paris in November, when the events unfolded in some of the suburbs. Being the Senior Editor of a Paris city guide, you can imagine I spent my stay in the French capital riding, walking, visiting and searching for interesting news to report back to our readers. Well, well, well. There I was, zipping through the traffic day and night on my scooter, looking for some atrocious mob scene, secretly hoping to catch a bunch of ugly rioters burning expensive cars in front of a police precinct! Camera! Light! Action! After all, the headlines had promised us quite a show. And you know the media always, always, always tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them God. So I spent my 2-week stay criss-crossing the streets of Paris. I went everywhere: in the Pigalle red district, to the R