As several news organizations such as CBS News have been reporting, for two weeks now, there have been riots in predominantly poor African immigrant neighborhoods of Paris, and how these riots highlight the growing inequality that exists between affluent cities on the one hand, and disadvantaged and neglected suburban neighborhoods on the other:

The riots have highlighted the division between France’s big cities and their poor suburbs and frustrations simmering in housing projects to the north and northeast of Paris, heavily populated by North African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children who struggle with high unemployment, crime and poverty.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a series of emergency meetings with government officials throughout the day Thursday, including one with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused of inflaming the crisis with his tough talk and police tactics. Sarkozy has called troublemakers “scum” and vowed to “clean out” troubled suburbs.

Minister of Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had to react “firmly” but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to have dealt with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades.

Clearly, the U.S. is not the only nation with race relations and immigration issues. Nor is it the only country that is experiencing a growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. And further, the U.S. isn’t alone in having ignorant, intolerant, narrow-minded politicians and national leaders who are completely blind to the big picture and the root causes of this kind of social unrest.

Time and time again, the message is loud and clear but so easily falls on deaf ears -- attack the root cause of the problem -- in this case, economic disadvantage and social alienation -- rather than just treating the symptoms. If societies do not do so, they should not be surprised when such stratification, resentment, and tension eventually boil over and explode into acts like this in which authorities have to other choice but to pay attention to.