France; the country where Croissant and riots co-exsit

We often think French as elegant yet exquisite not the picture above where riots, protests, and strikes are norm in this liberal founding member of European Union. I can observe from this picture that this angry young man does not fit anywhere near the bourgeois category that we have a clear picture on our mind. Yes, there are countless riots, protests, and strikes around the country not just in the capital city of Paris. I had a first impression that this young man is setting fire on cars parked off the street by no means. But just the “Occupy” protest which is undergoing around the world, they are not happy with their socio-economic infrastructure. Greedy corporates, corrupted society are to be blamed. We often lament how this society works and the fact that it is not going as we all desired to be. This picture is portraying well about the fact that corrupted socio-economic structure is ruining other citizens’ wealth and benefits. In a sense, that protesters would be portrayed as low-income and troubled youths often from poor immigrant families. They seem not to care about the society and have laments towards the society they belong to. But this is not always the case in most circumstances. We cannot easily ignore our instinct and misconceptions towards the general things such as prejudices. This might be telling us that not all of white French people are rich enough to drive super cars in Champs-Elysee and dine in Michelin starred restaurants. There are significant gap between Haves and Have-nots just like in any industrialized nations. France is not the exception. We often picture France as elegant nation and the jewel of Europe but sometimes we have to think outside the box and realize that they are just like us but the different language and cultural norms that we might have.