Suburban warriors

Sleepless nights, rowdy classrooms, and unquenched young anger turn France on its head and give a foothold to Muslim radicals | Mindy Belz

Teachers in Le Bourget say they don't sleep at night because of the burning cars, but they show up for work the next day, anyway. Schools in this and other Paris suburbs affected by weeks of youth violence have not closed. Still, threats seep into not only a teacher's dreams but also her classroom. One day last week Rebekah Spraitzar, a visiting American teacher at Collège Didier Daurat, a junior-high school here, had one student in jail and one just out. Another marauding pupil, age 13, told her: "We are just having fun."

No one else is laughing. The violence that began Oct. 27 in Clichy-sous-Bois, when two teenagers hiding from police accidentally electrocuted themselves, by Nov. 9 had spread to all 15 of France's largest cities.