France had been hit with repeated riots of Muslim and African French citizens and immigrants. Thousands of cars were burned, property damaged and violence of the protesters had injured and killed bystanders. The major complaint was that they were not really accepted as equals in French society. Chirac tried to calm the rioters and prevent a backlash. Although France was a pioneering country in acceptance and tolerance of people of different races and religions, there has always been a strong intolerant segment of French Society that were racist, anti-Semitic and Fascist leaning. Because of the French concept of equality, affirmative action was not legally possible in France so that there was heavy discrimination and even segregation in housing, schools, occupations, and socially. Further, one of the traditional expectations of all immigrants who become French is that they adopt the French language and culture. Like immigrants throughout the world at the end of the 20th century, French immigrants often wanted to maintain their own customs, culture and language—a practice which set them at odds even with otherwise nondiscriminatory Frenchmen and women.
