Print this page French riots a message: Pope From correspondents in Vatican City 20dec05 FRANCE has to heed the warning from the riots that rocked cities across the country last month, Pope Benedict said today, urging the French government to do more to promote racial integration. "The internal violence which left its mark on societies can only be condemned, however, it was a message, notably from youth," the pope said in an address during an audience with the new French ambassador to the Vatican. The riots in France's poor suburbs began after the accidental deaths of two youths apparently fleeing police but grew into protests by youngsters of North African and African origin as well as poor white youths. President Jacques Chirac acknowledged after the riots, which lasted for weeks, that France needed to improve conditions in its "banlieues", the often depressed poorer residential suburbs. The pope said immigrants had brought "economic, cultural and social richness" to France which now had the challenge of living up to its values of equality and fraternity by taking "an extra step towards integration". France, a predominantly Catholic country with a 5-10 per cent Muslim population, needed to ensure immigrants and their descendents could be part of "a real common culture imbued with fundamental moral and spiritual values", he said. That meant giving them "more confidence in a better future, allowing them to build their existence, to find a job to meet their needs and those of their families, to have the well-being which is their natural right". Other countries in Europe needed to make similar efforts, Pope Benedict said. "Social peace, to a large extent, is (achieved) at this price."
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