Bagnolet is the Paris suburb where the majority Muslim population successfully expelled Christians from a local church by directly going after the owner. So it could be that these "youths" were also Muslim and that these riots were partly ideological, drawn from the same well of religious fanaticism that causes French Muslim men to set their girlfriends on fire and French Muslim groups to call for the mass extermination of Jews.

Or it could just be a huge coincidence, which would explain why the words "Muslim" and "Islam" make no appearance in this article:

Some 40 rioters in a Paris suburb hurled Molotov cocktails at police and firefighters, torched cars and one person fired a handgun during a rampage early Monday prompted by the death of a teen pizza deliverer fleeing police... some 40 vans of riot police were seen outside the housing project where the rioting occurred. No one was injured, authorities said. Some witnesses claimed that a police car hit the 18-year-old's motorcycle... However, Philibert Demory, deputy prosecutor of Bobigny, which handles the region, said that "as it stands so far there is no element to show contact" between the two vehicles. He asked witnesses to come forward. The teenager lost control of his motorcycle and hit a metal barrier; he then died en route to the hospital, police said.

Ah well. Any excuse to riot is a good excuse when the goal is to randomly intimidate officials. Low-level politicized urban violence is just part of life, whether in the service of shutting down Israeli book fairs or of securing political favors:

For Americans, it's baseball. For the British, it's cricket. And for the French, well, it must be the season for burning cars and attacking police. French "youth" have rioted for the past two days over the economy, hoping to get French President Nicolas Sarkozy to restore some of the cushy job protections that he has ended in hopes of reforming the French economy towards growth.

For some reason the strategy of institutionalizing sharia seems to be stoking rather than dampening the sectarian passions of French Muslims. Which is weird because appeasement has historically worked so well in and around Paris.

If the protesters had tried to boo the French national anthem, though, that would have been over the line.

References and previously after the jump...