Nearly 43,000 cars were torched in France over the whole of 2007 — an average of almost 118 per day
Formuch of the world, they became iconic of France’s worst social ills:the burned out carcasses of thousands of cars set ablaze during nearlythree weeks of nationwide rioting in 2005. But as yet another orgy ofautomobile arson on Wednesday demonstrated, the torching of cars inFrance has not only become an everyday event; it’s also now a regularform of expression for disenfranchised suburban youths wanting to makesure the rest of the country doesn’t forget they exist. And their fierypresence is never felt so strongly as it is each New Year’s Eve — theday of France’s unofficial festival of car burning.
According to figures from the French Interior Ministry, 1,147 carswent up in smoke on New Year’s Eve — a 30% rise on the 879 autostorched the same night in 2007.As often is the case, the worst-hit areas were the disadvantagedneighborhoods that sit beyond the suburban peripheries of most Frenchcities. A total of 422 cars were burned in Paris-area housing projects,compared with 12 in the relatively well-policed Parisian intra muros.Other cities whose unemployment-racked, racially-tense banlieues alsolived up to their reputations for frequent car burning includedStrasbourg, Lille, Toulouse, and Nantes. Across France, police arresteda total of 288 people on New Year’s Eve (versus 259 the year before) —though not all were charged, and many were apprehended for offensesunrelated to arson.