As France went through its troubles, piously PC commentators were quick to note that the French did not approve of the rough language (rabble) used by Interior Minister Sarkozy about the rioters, which must make this a touch embarrassing:

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French minister of the interior, [is] basking in the results of the polls there, with 57% approving his hardline approach to the riots in the Parisian banlieue (and, by implication, his lively description of the rioters as “racaille” – scum). That was an important victory for him, as much in the context of his presidential ambitions as in the narrower arena of law and order.