Via Bloomberg:

In a bid to help cool tensions, [French Prime Minister Dominique] de Villepin proposed boosting spending on training and education programs in poor neighborhoods…

De Villepin’s call for increased spending on training programs comes amid rising unemployment among immigrants. Last year, 17.4 percent of immigrants were unemployed, compared with 9.2 percent for non-immigrants, says Insee, the Paris-based government statistics office. For the same education level, immigrants are more likely to be unemployed, it said.

“Youth unemployment reaches almost 40 percent in some areas,” de Villepin said. He added that the goal of the government will be to give unemployed youth living in France’s “sensitive urban areas” a work contract, an internship or training in coming months.

De Villepin also said he will restore government subsidies to local associations scrapped by his predecessor and aims to triple scholarships and improve links between universities and students living in poor areas…

Bribery: It’s how the French do business.

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On a related note, Joel Kotkin writes that Villepin’s cure–the elaborate French welfare state–is the disease.