THE fight within the French Cabinet brought to a head by the riots may go on longer than the images of 250 burning cars. It is even possible that Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, blamed for inflaming the rioters and looking like a casualty this week, may emerge ahead.

A week of riots in the suburbs has exposed the split in the Cabinet about how to deal with France’s immigrants. It has pitted Sarkozy against his rival to succeed Jacques Chirac as President in 18 months’ time — the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin.

But it is also a philosophical rift. De Villepin stands for those who would preserve the principles of equality and “Frenchness” in dealing with immigrants: demanding that they remove their headscarves and fit in with the culture.

Sarkozy has spun a complicated, twin-stranded message. He has advocated tough action against violence, in an appeal to the right.

But he has also backed affirmative action in jobs and education, in an appeal to the centre-left. He has provoked a row in his own party by suggesting that immigrants should be able to vote in local elections.

On Monday morning it looked as though this saga might be the downfall of the endlessly ambitious Sarkozy. His weekend remarks that criminals were “scum” and his vow to “hose down” the lawless estates were taken as a declaration of war by some immigrants, and shocked centre-left commentators.

Chirac, spotting a chance to promote his protégé de Villepin, emerged from two months of near-silent convalescence, to call for “respect” in the use of language.

But de Villepin may now have sabotaged his own cause. He has been jumped on by MPs since losing his temper on Wednesday, retorting, “Since you know everything, you give me the answers”, to one MP, and shrugging his shoulders in a manner seen as dismissive and arrogant.

Some in his party have also criticised him for allowing a junior minister openly to attack Sarkozy - and for appropriating the riots for his own battles against the Interior Minister.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy’s tough talk has won support in some unexpected quarters, including some residents of the troubled suburbs themselves, fed up with the violence.

His rise to prominence, during an earlier spell as Interior Minister, was due partly to his tough stance on crime.

Sarkozy has not, however, yet won more support for his campaign to boost the rights of immigrants, and to foster a “French Islam”.

De Villepin has called these proposals “unFrench”. In promoting discrimination in favour of minorities, he has claimed that a failure to insist that they assimilate leads to violence or terrorism, and that Britain is an example of this (an apparent reference to the July bombings).

For the moment, this seems the mainstream position, in the Cabinet and the political elite.

But Sarkozy has surely touched a nerve — and not just with the rioters — in arguing that the policies of the past 30 years do not work.

Immigrants, many of whom arrived in the 1960s, now make up nearly a tenth of France’s 60 million people. They may speak French, but while so many remain unemployed, and while almost none has made it to the top in politics or business, they are outside society.

Sarkozy has complimented himself on being a rare politician who will speak straightforwardly about these issues. But those who can stomach the self-promotion may well feel he has a point — on the need for tough policing, but on the need for extra help as well.

His language at the weekend shocked the political classes. But the bigger shock to France is the phenomenon of the riots themselves. As the fighting cools, France must look for answers. Sarkozy has made a plausible case that he has some.

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