Steve,

Remember as a kid watching the Watts riots in '65, then two years later in Detroit and Newark, and then the devastation after the assassination of Martin Luther King in '68.

I asked my father, who was a WW II vet, what's going on? I hope he'll forgive the paraphrase.

"On one hand, they're attacking what's closest and that means their own neighbourhoods. Go too far past the post and they'll be shot on sight."

"Lot easier to burn than turn that awful violence on another human being. Killing is not an easy thing, ask your Uncle Henry about that. "

"On the other hand, " he continued, "Lock up a whole lot of people behind some cage walls long enough, silence their leaders one by one...pow pow pow, and they'll explode."

"Ask your Uncle Henry about the deadly effectiveness of hand grenades in bunkers."

BTW, the tantrum rioting in France also has a lot to do with ethnic, religious and economic segregation.

About 10% of France's population is Muslim and concentrated in poor urban settings and yet represent around 65% of France's prison population.

12% of Paris and 20-25% of Marseille is Muslim. Many of them are from France's former African colonies (The Maghreb), in particular Algeria, and are often employed in the lower paying service industries.

Explains some of the violence and perhaps the police over-reaction to minor infractions.

But most French, and for sure most police, remember the Jihadist attacks of 2015: 30 dead and 350 wounded; the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier in January 2015 by "...two jihadist gunmen, who murdered 12 people, and most recently the 2020 Eagles of Death rock concert at the Bataclan theatre, which killed 90 people."

And then this:

"In the 2015–2018 timespan in France, 249 people been killed in terrorist attacks and 928 wounded in a total of 22 terrorist attacks." (although Wiki, it is multi-sourced).

The Maghreb?

They need a MLK.