Those riots may have been partly race orientated but that is only the tip of the iceberg. The only reason for race being an issue is because the French constitution bans use of ethnic terminology. A Frenchmen is French, constitutionally citizens of ethnic origin are not recognised as such. But as I say this was only the tip of the iceberg. Unemployment figures at that point were ridiculously high in young people. They had no jobs, these were economic riots, they were not exclusively Muslim, they may have had a high proportion of Muslims but that's because as immigrants they are at the bottom of the social ladder and so were worse hit. Also these riots were not just in Paris (where there is a large amount of immigrants) but all over the country.