Pave: Pig Alley Rumble

Mysterious "youths" continue to plague France.

POLICE DETAIN 30 IN PARIS GANG FIGHTS

PARIS August 28, 2007 (AFP) - Police detained 30 people overnight in Paris after rival gangs armed with cleavers and machetes clashed in the Pigalle nightlife district, a police source said Tuesday.

No one was seriously injured in the fight between two youth gangs who also clashed at the Gare du Nord train station on Sunday, according to police.

In Republican France there is no identity other than the Republican hive identity. [Pause.] At least that's the theory.

So when rival gangs go at each other with machetes and cleavers, the French press cannot tell us more than the contents of the hive identity. Reports are bereft of any societal organizing dynamic other than Republican Frenchness. Just clutches of French Republicans hacking one another.

We do not here suggest, as we do elsewhere when the omission is blatant, that the "youths" in question are Muslims or Maghrébins. Honestly, we do not know what to suggest.

About 50 gang members were involved in the Pigalle fight, but only six remained in custody on Tuesday.

We would posit another attribute of the Republican hive identity is an eel-like slipperiness, as so few French gang members in breach of the law are ever caught and held to account (and here).

PFFT (What is this?): Shared identity ½ | Rayonnement français 0