Everythings gone slow here as I wait to go home whilst working the odd private lesson.
Twiddling my thumbs in Earnest!

I have been following the recent events in France with interest. It came as no surprise to me that this kind of thing was going to happen, it has been boiling up for a long time. So I was rather irritated by some of the media outlets that I have watched over here that they have failed to explain about the root causes of such a conflict. France is suffering from a crisis that has overlooked for a long time and has completely failed to confront. Visiting any city in France is a testamant to the schism in French society right now. I remember arriving in Montpellier for the first time and being awestruck by the gorgeous 17th century architecture of the old quarter, its sumptuous gardens and majestic opera house. However having wandered around the city, I soon discovered the suburbs and La Paillade a disgusting grim assault of concrete and grey of whose inhabitants are 100 percent north african. Any french city is a testamant to this, beautiful old city centres and hideous concrete suburbs. The contrast is enormous and reflects the feeling that
immigrants have been dumped on the periphery of french society. All nations have problems with assimilating immigrants and often certain ethnic groups have greater difficulty than others. However I can testify to how difficult it is to fit in in france from my own experiences. I have been to France over 30 times, speak french and have french ancestry and yet i found it very hard to be accepted. I personally think the the problem is that the french are bred on a diet of excessive cultural imperialism. French culture and indeed its language has been lauded as pure and almost virginal and any foreign influence is seen as a threat to its purity, it cannot diversify or evolve, french culture is french culture.

It is not surprising that french cultural imperialism has disturbing racialist and right wing overtones, which have been demonstrated with Vichy in the 1940s and the Front National today. France needs to wake up and abandon its up its own arsedness cultural pomposity.