Cheese-eating bigotry monkeys

Apparently, about a third of the Frogs surveyed in a recent study think that they're at least a little bit racist.

Some 33 percent of 1,011 people surveyed face-to-face by pollsters CSA said they were "somewhat" or "a little" racist, up 8 percentage points from last year, according to an annual report by the National Consultative Commission for Human Rights.

The poll asked the question "When it comes to you personally, would you say you are ..." followed by a list of options: somewhat racist, a bit racist, not racist, not very racist, not racist at all and don't want to say.

[...]

The report, presented to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, was conducted from November 17-22, 2005, immediately after several weeks of rioting in poor suburbs around the country.

Thousands of cars were torched by youths who said they faced discrimination, police harassment and lack of access to jobs. Youth unemployment rises to 50 percent in some poor urban areas.

So, I guess the results were colored by the riots, which were perpetrated by, if I recall the phrase correctly, "Youths Of Indeterminate Ethnic Extraction"--code words for mostly Arab and African thugs who rampaged through the suburbs of Paris last year.

I can see how people would be upset about a situation like that--I know I would have been--but to accuse themselves of racismover something like that? That seems like a stretch. But then again, these are the French we're talking about.