The fact that the immigrants are having a hard time assimilating doesn't mean that they are absolved from the responsibility of assimilating. It is up to them, just as it would be in any society. My point was that the policies that France has set forward (largely at Mr. Chirac's urging) make it appear to the immigrants that they need not assimilate, which directly leads to their failure in society. Perhaps I have indeed overestimated Chirac's capabilities there, but not his contribution to this situation; it was largely his work to put into place the policies that are now causing much of these problems.
The PM certainly has a level of responsibility here, let's not forget that Mr. Chirac was PM in the 1970s and again in the late 1980s. He's made his mark on that post and is quite familiar with the post and its capabilities, yet he didn't direct his current PM in a manner that would prevent or avoid such problems.
Still, the specifics of the problem are indeed complex. Mr Chirac, by himself, couldn't bring this about. It is true that the French citizens played a part as did the immigrants themselves. Neither appeasement, nor facism are long term solutions, instead any reasonable solution will require a level of compromise that at least some of the French, and some of the immigrants, appear to be uneager to embrace.

There are many ways to assess a situation. Your method is indeed one of them. Another is to toss aside all of the local specifics and look at the situation in a more general light which is what I've done.
The general case is that diverse groups from different backgrounds, living near each other, aren't getting along. That's a macro-view of the situation, but it avoids entanglements in issues that are not necessarily part of the problem, but can distract from the problem. If we look at more specifics, we get into ethnicity, national origin, religion, discrimination, bans on religious articles, etc., but those specifics don't change the aspect of the basic problem. Since the basic problem is that diverse groups don't get along, one of the methods of solving the problem is to look at generally similar cases that have had better results. The U.S. is one of the examples of a society where different groups have figured out a way to get along, so it makes sense to take from those examples (plus there is a wealth of bad examples in the U.S., so one can learn from the bad and the good). From these examples, one gets the following:

• Assimilation is important and even necessary for minorities to succeed.
• Putting forward a culture that denies this necessity is not going to work (as history has shown us countless times).
• Discrimination exists throughout the process and isn't going to go away because of legislation, a policy of multiculturalism, etc.
• People from different groups have to want to live together in order to do so.

As to France specific content, you're right, there isn't much. Neither is there much Muslim specific content, African specific content, etc. That is because the problem (diverse gorups having a problem getting along) isn't really a French problem, nor is it a Muslim problem, etc. The problem is a human problem, and it has been repeated throughout human history many times, the only thing that makes it French is that it is occurring in France. Xenophobia is a common trait in all of humanity. Show a human something strange enough and the human will fear it. Show a community, society or culture something strange enough (something that is different or doesn't conform) and the community will band together to defeat it (even if only on a subconscious level).
I could, as you've suggested, look more closely at the specifics. I could look at the ban on the hijab and say that we need to fix that law, but the law is a symptom of the problem. Discrimination is also a symptom of the problem. Unemployment is a symptom of the problem, etc. Even the current riots and fires are symptoms of the problem. Treating those symptoms is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You can eliminate the ban on the hijab (and on all religious articles), but the people still won't get along. The government can impose laws against discrimination, but will that make these diverse cultures like each other? Such a law wouldn't even end discrimination because people can often give a good business reason for discrimination. If, on the other hand, one deals with the problem, then the symptoms will go away.
It is true that sometimes we have to treat the symptoms as well as the problem. For example, the riots need to stop before any solution can have a chance, but your suggested approach would focus entirely on symptoms instead of the problem itself. That approach will only drag the problem out until it reappears (possibly in later generations).

The reality of the situation, as I stated above, is that diverse groups of people, living in the same community, are not getting along. Everything else is an emotional distraction from, or symptom of, the basic facts. I can “get” that, as can anyone who is objective, because I've set aside the emotional distraction and gotten to the root of the problem. I'm not insane (well, not that anyone has proven), but I do have a different approach and a different point of view from you (obviously) which means that we won't likely agree on this issue.
Do I think it is easy to see the problem? Yes, I do, and I've done so. Do I think that it is easy to solve the problem? Absolutely not. People will have to be willing to change. They will have to be willing to accept that which they don't want to accept. They will have to want to live together (which some of them obviously currently don't). Nonetheless, the solution is going to have to be a decision, by all parties, to live together. I stress the minority needing to assimilate because the country is France, so the society is French and the French majority will want to retain their culture as part of their national identity. The immigrants will need to adopt to that reality.
In history, there haven't been many successful integrations of immigrants (or minority groups) into an existing culture. There have been enslavements, oppression (real oppression like we see in Darfour in the Sudan), insurrections/civil wars, etc. The only models that history provides with a positive result are those of assimilation. As such, any policy or any approach that ignores this is likely doomed to failure.

I don't believe that I've said that they haven't tried to assimilate, I've said that they haven't assimilated (e.g. they haven't succeeded, don't confuse effort for achievement). Indeed some of them, from all reports, don't want to, and as I suggested before, a 70% employment rate in these ghettos means that a great many of them have. I'm glad that you know some who have and this isn't surprising. I suspect that you enjoyed playing soccer with them and working with them largely because they had assimilated to a great extent. I also suspect that the people that you knew aren't likely to be involved in the riots. For that matter, the ones that you called punks and robbers are likely the ones who haven't assimilated well into French society and some of them are likely involved in the riots.
By your own admission, you don't understand all of what is going on there, and I submit it is because you are too focused on the subtleties of the situation. I've simply divorced the problem from its subtleties.
I don't claim to know the subtleties either (never have). For that matter, I'm pretty sure that neither the French, nor the immigrants themselves fully understand all of the subtleties of the situation. In fact, I submit that it isn't possible to know them all because you'd have to be fully a member of each side of the conflict to have a chance, and nobody can fill that role. Getting tied up in the subtleties is an approach that is fruitless. It doesn't lead to any solutions or benefit because the people involved won't generally even agree on the facts of a partcular issue. By distancing one's self from the subtleties, one can objectively view the problem as being similar to countless other problems and one can inded choose a solution that worked in other cases.

Despite all that you've written, you haven't really shown how they aren't that simple, so tell me. If I've missed the problem in some way, let me know. Be certain that any point you make is significantly different and isn't simply a distraction from or a symptom of the basic problem. Let's face it, the riots aren't about a ban of the hijab, nor are they about two kids electrocuted in a power substation. As such, at least those two specifics aren't really going to be part of a greater solution.

-- Jeff

ps Doubtless many people will object to my separating the problem from the specifics. It can be argued that by ignoring the specifics I'm ignoring the cultural and environmental situation that is unique to the problem. That said, in general, history has shown that focusing on the specifics tend to lend themselves to much argument and discussion and very little actual progress. Because of focus on specifics instead of the real problem, hatred tends to be buried under the surface only to arise again. As an example, the British and Irish have been fighting each other for one reason or another for more than 1000 years. It isn't because of any specifics, they simply aren't willing to get along. We'll never find out why they started fighting, and any attempt to focus on the specifics will fail because there is always one more argument from one side or the other. To fix such a problem, we have to realize that we'll never know all of the specifics and cannot focus on them. Instead we need to identify the basic problem, and then put forward a solution that will doubtless fail to address all of the specifics, but will deal with the problem as a whole.

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"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." --Ronald Reagan