This time, they’re attacking the gendarmes with shotguns. This isn’t a riot. It’s an insurrection. What is Sarkozy going to do?

I find this particular euphemism by the press quite irritating. Can’t we be a little more specific and descriptive about the “youths”? By using that phrase, we’re tarring all French youth, many of whom, if not most, I suspect, are not blasting the cops in the faces with shot. Are they Catholics? Huguenots? Mormons? Amish?

In the US, when they won’t tell you the race of a criminal suspect, it’s generally a good bet that he’s of African descent, and if they make you guess the party of a miscreant politician, it’s a good indicator that it’s a Democrat. In French riots, one strongly suspects that when the perps are described only as “youths,” that they are (a) not necessarily that young and (b) at least notional followers of the Religion of Peace™. But we don’t want to prejudice anyone against the religion that cannot be named, no, or tell the readers what’s really going on here. We’ll just slander all young French people.