Coping Mechanism Type Rationalizations Likely to Follow Shortly

Sooner or later, someone will call torching cars a form of emotional release, politically meaningful, or even a form of noteworthy expression as a means of accepting hideous destrictiveness as normative or at least understandable. Fausta is up in the skybox with the play-by-play:

A few unruly kids light up some Roman candles and everyone takes it in stride

Un-hunh.

In a country where car-burning isn't a common symptom of socioeconomic unrest, news of so many automobiles being torched would be alarming - if not a sign of brewing insurrection. In France, however, word of the destruction that accompanied the evening the French call Saint-Sylvestre was met with a mix of Gaulic shrugs and low-grade peevishness.

In revealing the figures on Thursday, French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie acknowledged that the tally of car-burnings had indeed increased over the previous year. Yet Alliot-Marie also said the enormous fleet of now carbonized vehicles shouldn't darken a New Year's Eve that was "unanimously considered mostly calm." Alliot-Marie also stressed that - in contrast to recent years - the first night of 2009 saw "no damage to public or private buildings."

Except for the fact that it IS becoming normal.

Nearly 43,000 cars were torched in France over the whole of 2007 - an average of almost 118 per day.

I say we just start calling every angry male out on the streets in France a flamer.