With the spread of rioting to almost 300 cities across France, its Government faces the biggest challenge to state authority since the student uprising in 1968. Whatever the grievances in the ghettos, however slow the official response, the priority is clear: restore order and reclaim the angry streets of the suburbs.

The decision to give mayors the right to impose curfews is suitable — though it is unclear how such a measure could be enforced when the police seem powerless to stop the nightly outbreaks of arson and violence. The Government, sensitive to the danger of escalation, has ruled out the use of troops, a move that could lead to shots, deaths and further confrontation. But unless there is a sudden cold spell, it may be some time before the flames of burning cars are doused. A period of relative calm could be followed quickly by further unrest.

Already, the costs are evident. Not only has France suffered a terrible setback to what it had naively thought, at the height of World Cup euphoria in 1998, was a successful policy of integrating its minorities as equal citizens; but President Chirac’s own political legacy has been damaged severely. Critics have pointed to the irony of a man who came to power 12 years ago with a promise to heal France’s “social fracture” having to invoke emergency measures dating back to the Algerian war. His failure to speak out early in clear support of his Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, is seen as a blunder inspired by feuding and rivalry within the Government. And his vigorous opposition to involvement in Iraq in an attempt to court the Arab and Muslim vote now seems like a profound misunderstanding of the real issues troubling France’s six million Muslims.

Neighbouring countries cannot feel smug about the riots, however. Already there have been some copycat incidents in Belgium. Although France has a tradition of confrontation and political violence, especially by farmers, students and striking trade unionists, many of the underlying tensions that have sustained the uprisings in the suburbs are common across Europe: high concentrations of ethnic minorities, very high unemployment — in some French ghettos up to 40 per cent — widespread grievances at discrimination and perceived racism, and the influence of criminal gangs, drug dealers and religious extremists.

The Government has announced measures that are long overdue — and which have until now been championed mainly by M Sarkozy: funding to housing and education groups, recently cut, is to be restored, scholarships tripled and new apprenticeship schemes offered to troubled teenagers. But the most urgent need is for jobs. Unemployment is the single greatest cause of alienation, poverty and dis- affection. The rigidities of the French labour market shut out the young and less qualified, deny jobs to temporary workers and protect institutionalised elites. In the essential rethinking of attitudes to citizenship, opportunity and the integration of minorities, a new approach to work, taxes and mobility must be a priority.