A quote from the Covenant Zone blog, 27 November 2007

Citizen journalists are on the scene this time, far more than was the case during the previous rioting; now a whole parallel world of reporting is going on, in venues like youtube and dailymotion, and blogs like bafweb and Francois deSouche. The France of 2005/06 was not as wired as the France of today; let's see what difference this might make, as the French news consumers plug in to alternative sources of information to fill out their understanding of why they've lost their car and why they have the sting of smoke in their eyes. [...] I think we can expect a very different response to the riots this time. Not a universal, nation-wide condemnation yet, but far less sympathy for the "downtrodden youth" than was the case during Chirac's France.
The French seem to be waking up.