Back after a break occasioned by riots and then a much-needed breather. A most depressing time. But a few weeks on everything seems eerily back to normal. The government has just announced a few more aid schemes for the banlieues, as well as initiatives to discourage discrimination in the jobs market. But will it make any difference? Personally I doubt it. The suburbs have had money flung at them for a quarter of a century, and anti-discrimination plans -- however well-intentioned -- need real teeth. Remember the furore over bussing in the US? It takes that kind of a showdown. I predict more rioting -- and on a larger scale -- if Nicolas Sarkozy wins the presidential race in 2007. And if I were a betting man, I would still say he is odds on. Sarkozy has earned the utter venom of the political left and all bien-pensant Parisians because he is quite obviously courting the same far-right vote that upset the last presidential race in 2002 (when Le Pen won through to round two). His response is to say that it is the failure of French politics to bring these people into the main stream that is the real fault. His tough line is certainly popular -- but for the young blacks and arabs he is now the very symbol of all they loathe. Over and again at the scene of the riots one got the same answer: he insulted us, he treats us like dogs etc. Interestingly for linguists, there are two French words at the centre of this debate: racaille and karcher. Racaille has entered modern legend by being translated into Engish as scum. This -- it seems to me -- is woefully excessive. Scum registers 9.9 on the scale of English invective. It really implies deep disgust and a desire to do ill. Racaille is strong -- but not that strong. Also it is worth saying that Sarkozy applied it to the criminal element in the banlieues -- not to the general population. As for karcher, it's an industrial trademark that has entered the dictionaries. It means a water-jet cleaner. Sarkozy said he would use one to clean out the bad elements. Again, not a pretty turn of phrase. But again, he made the remarks at the scene where an 11 year-old boy had just been shot dead in an exchange of gunfire by drugs gangs. The boy was washing his father's car as a Father's day gift. For many people in France -- judging by the polls -- Sarkozy's language was spot on.