Street Toughs

Ha so last night I walked into yet another new situation. In Angers, there are several groups of teenagers of slightly middle eastern descent (North Africans) who basically travel around in gangs. They grease their hair, move in really quick and jerky motions, yell at girls and hold down some areas not letting people into them.
I took the night bus and they all got on, trying to cheat the driver by sneaking on but he caught them. So they got on and decided to start spitting spit wads at everyone on the bus. They were going in people's hair and nobody did anything so I turned around and yelled 'Knock it OFF!'

This set em' off pretty well as they all started insulting me and spitting more at me. I just got up and moved seats to ignore them. One of them smacked my head right before getting off the bus and then ran off. They caught up to the bus at a stop light to taunt me some more and bang on the glass pounding on their chests.

It reminded me of that disturbing movie 'Kids' or 'City of God', just some bored messed up kids full of hate.

My advisor for this program has traveled France and she specifically said to us, 'Don' even talk to North Africans, especially you girls.' Pretty bold thing to say as an academic advisor, so obviously the stereotypes of them ring true in person. Nobody even tries to discipline them because they will all just rally around and protest it.

Kids in France...they need jobs. Nobody in high school works here, they just travel in packs to the McDo or go to the bars. There is either a profession or someone who does nothing. The kind of jobs we may work in high school and college seem below them, so they just don't do it.