Muslims in France blameless?

Unfortunately, most people in the west tend to agree with this.

French Muslim leaders denounced on Thursday efforts to blame Muslims and Islam for recent riots in the country‘s rundown suburbs and said they saw worrying signs of growing prejudice against their faith here.

Many young rioters may have been from Muslim backgrounds, but their violent outburst was a protest against unemployment, poor housing and other bias they faced because of their foreign origins, they told journalists.

Urban violence, which some politicians in France and some media abroad portrayed as a kind of Muslim uprising, fell back to normal levels on Thursday after three weeks in which 9,000 vehicles and many buildings were set on fire.

"They didn‘t act like that because they‘re Muslims, but because of the misery they‘re living in," said Kamel Kabtane, rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon in eastern France.

There's no question that France has made lots of mistakes in its handling of immigration - but assimilation is a two-way street. The Muslim community must make an effort to help solve this problem as well.