London is of course not the only European capital to have felt the force of youth rioting in recent years. In 2005, Paris had to deal with its own civil disorder as young Parisians went on the rampage, setting cars ablaze and smashing shop windows, in scenes that now look all too familiar to Londoners.
In Paris, two boys, 15-year-old Bouna Traore, and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on the 27th October 2005. Local teenagers blamed the police for the deaths, and chaos ensued. Even now, tensions between French police and youths in poor neighbourhoods still simmer and occasionally erupt into violence.
The French Ministry of Interior has now reportedly offered to send over policing experts who have extensive expertise in catching rioters, after the British police were found wonting, allowed the looters to capitalise on the choas.
Can the British government learn lessons from the Parisian riot experience? A French academic and a French journalist compare our experiences.
Sophie Desjardin, a Euronews reporter from their French bureau, sees the similarities.
The Paris rioting was certainly similar in the event that triggered it. In London it was the death of a man at the hands of the police, and in Paris it was the same. The death of one or several people of the community turned into a revenge of the whole community. Usually, in those suburbs, in Paris as in London, the relationships between youth and police are poor.
The social background is the same. Unemployment, racism, and a feeling of desperation among those young people lead to that kind of explosion. There was the same feeling of being harassed by the police and despair about the future. They are all young people living in suburbs where there is nothing to do, no future, or at least that's what they are feeling.
The riots in London come in a period of mistrust towards the police, and in France Nicolas Sarkozy was minister of the Interior at the time. He was "the big chief” of the French police and he had a very bad image among those young people from the suburbs. A few months before the riots erupted, he had this famous sentence when he said, "on va nettoyer les quartiers difficiles au karcher" [we are going to flush out the problem districts].
Parisians were less surprised because "difficult suburbs" are an old problem. French people have always known this kind of eruption can occur any time
It took a long time for Paris to return to normality. The riots in Paris erupted in October and a curfew was pronounced in November. It then took three weeks to be lifted. So basically almost a month until we started to go back to normality.
One can always blame the police for the way it reacts. What is certain is that the French police was much better prepared for that kind of event, compared to the British. It happens a lot in France, not so violently of course, but it happens regularly. We have these special units forces that can be deployed in a difficult area, without striping the workforce elsewhere, and that is what the British police does not yet have.
Ben Judah, a research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, is struck by the contrasts.
The French riots were different - they had a more articulated and genuine greivance, were underscored by a heavy racial undertone and were more sustained, and they were concentrated on the edges of Paris never really touching the inner city. The British riots lacked an articulated narrative, despite vague and garbled mumblings about rich people, the rioters seem to have been a mixed-raced rainbow on a thieving shopping spree.
Compared to the French riots, the British looting looks more like viral oppurtunism, fuelled as much by consumerism gone mad as social exclusion.
There was a greater emphasis on destruction and fighting the police and defying Sarkozy. The French riots flared up and down for months and continue to fester with car-burnings continuing at a low level to this day.
Fighting with the police, who were perceived as racist and fascist was elemental to the French riots. The British looting seems to have been defined by the belief the police had lost control and this was a chance to steal not battle.
The French police cracked down quickly and at times brutally, throwing fuel on the fire. The British police in comparison seem to have initially held back, throwing their punches with kid-gloves on.
Political language quickly turned vicious in France. Sarkozy, then interior minister said they were 'scum.' The rioters hollered back - 'Sarkozy is a fascist.' In Britain the political language is vanilla in comparison and the looters complaints are far more vague.
What the British and French riots do have in common is both countries have allowed a segment of their societies to degenerate into a cut-off underclass that needs serious help and has serious problems.