Tuesday, January 02, 2007

New Years numbers

Count for Alsace: 89 cars burnt.
Lower Rhine: 43 burnt, 12 attempted.
Upper Rhine: 46 burnt
Strasbourg: 28 burnt
Extra police: 50
Arrests: 39
Underage arrests: 25
Under 16: 14
Youngest arrested: 8 and 10 years old
Number of days it took for Strasbourg's mayor to call for a repeal of France's young offender's law: 1

New Year's (or Saint Sylvestre) was nice. Julie and Sebastien's place is on the fifth floor, so we had an excellent view of the city's unofficial fireworks - the whole town went up, basically. They sell fireworks legally one day of the year, just before New Years. Everyone buys hundreds of Euros worth of the stuff, and at midnight they were coming from every corner of the city - it looked as if the place had just been liberated from the Germans or something. We then popped the Crémeux (Alsatian sparkling wine) and some carbonated apple juice that some of the guests had brought for Amynah, which I thought was touchingly thoughtful. We got home about the time 2007 hit Newfoundland.

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