Back in Paris (thank God)!

Well, this will be short. After a long, long day of waiting in Malpensa Airport (I arrived very early in hopes of catching an earlier flight; it turned out I had the super-duper discount rate that can't be changed, so I either waited for my flight -- which I did -- or shelled out about $600 for a new ticket), I'm finally back in beautiful -- and sunny! -- Paris. I think I mentioned it rained nearly the entire time I was in Milan. Isn't it supposed to be "sunny Italy"? Not this time around. It's already late afternoon, so pretty much the rest of today will be spent just catching up, buying food supplies for the next day or so, etc.

Here's my take, from over here, of the Paris "riots":

They're nowhere near the central city itself. I purposely took the public train back from the airport (feeling fairly secure in broad daylight on a Sunday) because the media has been warning people to stay off of it because it goes through "that part of town." I didn't see anything anywhere along the line that even remotely hinted of anger or violence, and certainly didn't see burnt-out cars, buildings, etc. In the city itself, everything is just as it was -- including the usual mix of every kind of people possible walking the streets, interacting as usual, etc.

Between what I've seen and what I watched on World CNN in Milan, it appears that there was an initial upset following the death (undetermined yet whether caused by police or accidental) of two North African (or possibly one North African and one Black African) teenagers that triggered the first riot in that specific neighborhood -- which I will quickly add is heavily immigrant, highly unemployed (up to 75 percent) and extremely poor. The problem then became that various gangs in the area (seems to go with the socioeconomic turf) took up the theme and have continued it at night -- only, because true cowards (like gang types seem to be) never face anyone face to face and in daylight). The flare-ups in surrounding towns seem to have been that and not continued. At this point what is going on seems to be gang-related, and that's about it.

This weekend, while I was gone, there were silent marches by thousands here in Paris to protest the rioting and noted religious leaders of all faiths were actively working toward stopping the violence. One of the extra sensitivities of the present situation, of course, is that those minorities in the area where the initial rioting occurred are Muslim -- and people here are as uncertain about Muslims these days as anybody (well, as anybody on this side of the Atlantic...).

That's the latest from here. I'll get back to posting photos and such when I've been able to catch my breath a bit from the past few days in Italy.