Posthuman Blues

French plan curfews to stop riots

Local authorities in France have been allowed to impose curfews in an attempt to end 11 days of riots, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin says.

Speaking in a television interview, he called the violence "unacceptable" and outlined measures to curb the unrest that has hit 300 towns and cities.

The spectacle of the French riots reminds me of the scenario in "28 Days Later," only the source of the violence isn't nearly as esoteric as an experimental virus. In many ways, the riots echo the "Lord of the Flies" nightmare exactingly recounted in J.G. Ballard's "High-Rise."

I really enjoyed Chris Wren's take:

I was into the whole "See how the People really live" mode of sightseeing. It wasn't the vast tracts of council project housing that I was expecting - the kind you might have seen in London or Toronto in the 70's. I'm not even sure I'd call it "housing". It was just concrete bunkers from horizon to horizon. No parks, no shops, nothing. No sense of community life, and no physical spaces for communing to happen. Just concrete boxes and vast deserted plazas done in that utterly impractical Soviet style, loftily disdainful of human scale and "sentimental" esthetic sensibilities. No joy and no possibility of hope or escape. There was no reason to aspire to joining in with French society because there was no evidence of French society to aspire to.