THE SCENES of rioting in France, now approaching their second week, are like something from a dystopian future, a cross between "Escape From New York" and "A Clockwork Orange." Except it's not science fiction, it's real. And it's not a portent of trouble to come, but an alarming signal of what's happening now, the result of past neglect.
Technically speaking, the majority of the rioters are French, in the sense that they are citizens of France. But many are the native-born children of Muslim Arab and African immigrants who have grown up in abject poverty, warehoused in high-rise public housing projects that comprise bleak ghettos. They have not been assimilated into French culture and don't consider themselves as primarily French. Neither do the French - there are no Arabs or black Africans in the upper reaches of government or business management.
The French economy has been stagnant for some time, with men under age 25 being hit the hardest - nearly one in four are jobless. Those numbers are even worse for young male residents of French neighborhoods that are predominantly Muslim.
Chronic unemployment and poverty, concentrated in public housing, breeds alienation and despair, which can foment violence. The injection of radical Islamism and its anti-Western teachings can make for a particularly toxic cocktail of urban pathologies.
It's as if the conditions that make the West Bank and Gaza breeding grounds for terrorists had been transplanted into the Paris suburbs.
And for decades, French authorities have let it fester. As the underclass grew, becoming more cut off from mainstream society, law enforcement in the ghettos became more lax, to the point where police had a tacit agreement that they would not enter into these zones so as not to provoke the residents. That allowed the criminal element to metastasize and organize, the fruits of which have been on display the last two weeks.
The sclerosis that has gripped France's economic policies appears to have infected its crisis management as well. Rioters set thousands of cars ablaze and burned schools, shops and warehouses for 11 days before President Jacques Chirac uttered his first public comments on the matter. On Sunday, he declared that restoring law and order was an "absolute priority."
Extinguishing the riots is job one. But changing the conditions that sparked them must quickly follow. That should involve scaling back the mammoth socialist welfare state that has throttled economic growth. What few decent jobs that exist in France are not available to the Muslim immigrants and their sons and daughters, who toil in menial labor if they are employed at all.
The fear, however, is that it already is too late - and that the civil unrest will spread throughout Europe. It's already expanded beyond Paris to 300 towns around France, and there are reports of copycat car burnings in neighboring Belgium and Germany.
Europe cannot allow radical Islamists to exploit the situation by inciting a continental intifada. The goal in France and elsewhere should be giving everyone reason to identify themselves as citizens rather than with ethnicity or religion.