Word: eves
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...only become an everyday event; it's also now a regular form of expression for disenfranchised suburban youths wanting to make sure the rest of the country doesn't forget they exist. And their fiery presence is never felt so strongly as it is each New Year's Eve - the day of France's unofficial festival of car-burning. (Read a special report on the 2005 French riots...
...According to figures from the French Interior Ministry, 1,147 cars went up in smoke on New Year's Eve - a 30% rise on the 879 autos torched the same night in 2007. As often is the case, the worst-hit areas were the disadvantaged neighborhoods that sit beyond the suburban peripheries of most French cities. A total of 422 cars were burned in Paris-area housing projects, compared to 12 in the relatively well-policed Parisian intra muros. Other cities whose unemployment-racked, racially tense banlieues also lived up to their reputations for frequent car-burning included Strasbourg, Lille...
...revealing the figures on Thursday, French Interior Minister Michèle 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." Perhaps, but that was probably little comfort to the people who were forced to walk or make long commutes on public transport after finding...
...burning bonanza hardly reflects the gravity and scope of the problem. Nearly 43,000 cars were torched in France over the whole of 2007 - an average of almost 118 per day. Alliot-Marie stressed that the rise in the number of burnt cars on New Year's Eve 2008 came at the end of a year in which the total number of autos set alight in the first 11 months had decreased 15%, compared with the same period in 2007. But while annual figures may fluctuate, they've generally swelled since the late 1970s, when French suburban youths first started...
...another, less specifically-French, factor may also be behind the spike in car-burning rates. According to the National Observatory on Delinquency, as many as 20% of cars burned each year are suspected insurance fraud. If that trend, too, is on the rise, then New Year's Eve 2009 may be a veritable bonfire in France, as recession-bled car owners see the country's annual arson event as a chance to make some extra money...