The French media give poor coverage of what is happening in the suburbs

Following the violent riots that enflamed the outskirts of different French towns a year ago, the Swiss paper 'L'hebdo' chose to open up an office in Bondy, on the edge of Paris, in order to better get to know the reality of a fragile neighbourhood and to create a blog. Martin Buxant interviewed one of the journalists sent to Bondy, Michel Beuret, who criticises the work of the French media. "They don't go to the suburbs unless there is some bone to gnaw on, and even then, only if the bone is sensational. ... The media is interested in what is going wrong. But in the suburbs, nothing is ever going right, which ends up quite banal. When the suburbs cry out by setting things on fire, everybody suddenly pays attention. The message, however, why things are not alright, is totally inaccessible, because we are so out of touch with the suburbs. That is the lesson to be learned from the riots: the French media simply have not had a base in the suburbs."

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