In a couple of different ways recently I have been reflecting on the difference between England (ok Britain) and France when it comes to street disturbances. Theodore Dalrymple (also writing in the WSJ today) is rather more scathing of England and happier with France but I think there are a couple of advantages with the lager lout approach that is missed in his preference for quiet nights, lack of vomit and so on. In particular I don't think that England is in any danger of suffering from the same race riots.
I spent Halloween in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a place which is, or was, pretty bad with regard to unemployment etc etc - OK so other towns such as next door Sunderland might be worse but I don't think anyone would put Newcastle in the same league of economic vitality as London or even Birmingham these days. However I found myself able to wander around the streets of the middle of the town enjoying the views of women dressed in a wide variety of scanty halloween costumes and completely failing to step into pools of vomit or see alcohol fueled rage, even as it got nearer to closing time. I have to say the word "vibrant" rather sprang to mind. Of course I would expect that any other Monday would see rather less celebration but I'm pretty sure things are not much different on most Fridays and Saturdays. On the other hand I personally would be far less happy wandering around the equivalent parts of nearby Nice (or other local towns such as Grasse) at night myself and were I female I really would not wander around them dressed up as sexy vampire even at Halloween. Indeed outside of the tourist season and tourist neighbourhoods towns around here show about as much happening nightlife as a ploughed field, something that certainly isn't the case in the UK. Now I have no doubt that there are worse places in the UK than Newcastle, but then there are many far worse places than Nice in France so I think there is a reasonable sort of equivalence. Indeed I was in Rueil Malmaison, a western suburb of Paris a month or so ago and the place was both utterly dead as far as nightlife when and also vaguely menacing, particularly around the RER station. While many may criticise the English proleteriat for being booze filled louts, and there is no doubt that they can be unpleasant when you complain about their drunken revelry, they don't seem to have quite the same amount of pent up violence and aggression as their fellow proles across the water.
I think that one reason for this is a lack of enforced leisure aka long term unemployment. Sure the UK has diddled its figures - witness the famous joke about Jesus and the scouser on disability - but it really does have far lower unemployment and far far lower long term unemployment. Of course there are immigrant youths in Bradford or Burnley who have never had a job and seem unlikely to ever get one, and there are "native" youths in Sunderland or Sheffield who are in the same boat, but the number of employment blackspots with unemployment at even 10% let alone the 20-30% common to the banlieues is comparatively miniscule. The result of having fewer people on the dole is that firstly people can see how to improve their lot in life and secodnly that the ones working don't have as mch time or energy to riot or cause disturbances.
I also think that England has integrated its post war immigrants better - and given that they are from more varied backgrounds there is less cohesion between them - and that on the whole the English are now far less racist that the French since they are more familiar with the range of immigrant sorts. Sure there are racists and racist attacks on the immigrants but the casual unthinking racism that makes statements like "all N Africans are lazy criminals" commonplace in France is no longer an English problem.
However my deeper point, and I'm getting to it finally, is that there is one other difference between England and France and that is that, despite attempts by the multicultis and the police, people in England persist in fighting back when they see others trashing their property or their friends. Furthermore, as we have seen in now and again, while English people are generally law abiding and tolerant, there is a long history of fighting which means that immigrants who want to have a riot get attacked by native rioters who are just as deadly. I do believe that on the whole England will not suffer from the French disease even if the rest of Europe succumbs. The threat of retaliation, unfortunately demonstrated in the increase in "paki-bashing" after July 7th, is also key. If the "muslim community" in the UK starts burning things outside its own ghettoes it will face a spontaneous response that will require that the police actually defend the immigrants.
I think the key difference is that the English don't fear their immigrants and do value their contributions, from curryhouses to cricket, in a way that, despite the presence of Zidane et al, the French do not. A national that likes a scrap and likes a curry bought from its immigrants is unlikely to find any reason to block them up in a ghetto. And a country that offers everyone the opportunity to work and get ahead, buy their own house is simply not the sort of place that makes it easy for an immigrant community to feel discriminated against.