But a lot of them do. That, at least, is what the security guard for College Eugenie Cotton -- a school directly across the street from the burned-out warehouse -- says. The son of an Arabian immigrant, it is his job to prevent rioters from torching the school's gymnasium. He told the daily Le Parisien that he knows many of the rioters. Some were even regular visitors to the very gym that was torched by the mobs.


Though firefighters extinguished the warehouse blaze days earlier, the school's entrance still smells of charred wood and ashes. And the day of the arson attack -- last Wednesday -- seemed cleverly chosen. At the moment the fire was started, Khaled says, Paris police were concentrating on a football game at the Stade de France just a few kilometers away. Some police turned up, but there weren't enough and they retreated immediately. Firemen who hurried to Blanc-Mesnil were quickly forced back by a shower of bottles thrown by the rioters.

No work. No future.

"I don't think the riots are a good thing," says Khaled. "But the people are angry." The youth in the area, he says, have few prospects. No work. No future. "I try to understand them. They feel as though they aren't represented in France." Khaled himself says that racism is a major problem for him and his neighbors, many of them immigrants from Africa and the Maghreb.

"Those who come from Departement 93 (editor's note: Seine-Saint-Denis) and have an Arabian first name can basically forget about applying for jobs," Khaled says. "They won't be taken anyway." Indeed, on this Monday afternoon, Khaled is hanging out with dozens of others at a local restaurant, Brasserie Le Pasteur. But Khaled is an exception. Unlike the many jobless youth here, he works as an advertising salesman for a map publisher.

Khaled and his friends say they know what it will take to stop the riots. First and foremost, "Sarkozy has to apologize," he says, referring to French Interior Minister Nikolas Sarkozy. The interior minister helped fan the flames of rioters when he dismissed them as "scum" and threatened to clean them from the streets of Paris using a water cannon.

Waiting for her friends in front of the school, 14-year-old Leila says she shares the opinion of many in the area that at least some of the blame should be directed at Sarkozy. "You can't just set cars on fire, especially not those belonging to poor people," she concedes. "But it's Sarkozy's fault and we want him to resign." Ask around in Blanc-Mesnil and it quickly becomes clear that most in the neighborhood share Leila's dim opinion of the interior minister.

Nevertheless, most of the youth in Blanc-Mesnil fail to grasp the unlikelihood of Sarkozy stepping down. Besides, resignation would be a lose-lose proposition for Sarkozy, since it would merely be seen as a sign of state weakness by the rioters. Nor would it change much. But Leila disagrees. With law and order-obsessed Sarkozy out of the picture, she believes, life could get a little easier for herself and other immigrants. These days, it seems, the police conduct checks on the immigrant community for any reason at all. And Sarkozy or no Sarkozy, the police presence in the area is unlikely to diminish any time soon -- especially given the intensity of the current unrest.

"The Right to Live in Dignity"

Mostly, of course, it is the boys who attract the attention of the cops. "Whenever you happen across a cop, they check you," says Yasser, a classmate of Leila. "They want to see your ID and then they search your bags for drugs and weapons." The 14-year-old adds that he's never met a friendly policeman.

Like Khaled, Leila also knows a few boys who have participated in the riots. "They are 18 or 19 years old," she explains. "Some join in every night, others only every now and then." But the three friends sitting next to her say they haven't been part of the violence. Their duds look similar to those of the rioters, but one smirks and says, "it's just decoration."

In the neighboring quarter of La Courneuve -- an especially ugly concrete jungle right on the edge of Paris whose parking lots have also become cemeteries for burned out wrecks -- hundreds participated in a counter-demonstration on Monday seeking to stop the rioting. The quarter's communist mayor, Jil Poux, led the march wearing a Tricolour sash, a symbol representing the values that are cornerstones of the French Republic: liberté, egalité and fraternité. Of course, it was these very ideals that should have prevented the riots from ever happening in the first place.

Tellingly, though, the march wasn't just against the violence and rioting. In addition to signs proclaiming "Stop the Violence," there were others which read "Stop Unemployment," and "Support the Right to Live in Dignity." One local mother with African roots says, "I understand the youth, but I don't want to justify the violence." It has to come to an end, she says.

The march moves through the darkened canyons between the housing projects. "Join us to demonstrate against the violence," they shout through megaphones." There are hardly any young people taking part in the demonstration -- rather they stand on the edge of the street, their heads sunk deep into their hoods. They smirk quietly at one another.