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Yob Stars
Other Europeans believe that Britain has Europe's worst yobs, according to a survey published prior to the world cup finals, where English thugs are expected to face tough competition from local German and visiting Polish hooligans.
EURSOC isn't arguing with the findings of the survey, which the Telegraph helpfully publishes. But 76 percent of Europeans reckon Britain has a problem with anti-social behaviour. France comes a close second, with 75 percent, and Germany way behind with 61 percent.
France? Let's not forget the past half year or so. In November, France's tough suburbs erupted in a riots and violence not seen since the 1960s. News broadcasts and papers all over the continent (and further afield) reeled with images of burning cars, gangs of thugs attacking cops, reports of state buildings including schools and nurseries torched. While the entire nation wasn't in flames, you could be forgiven for thinking it was if you paid too much attention to the foreign media.
And then, more trouble this Spring, when the government tried to introduce a law designed to help young adults find work. Students held angry street protests and blockaded universities. Extremists burnt cars and battled cops. Worse still, gangs from the suburbs used the protests as an opportunity to do some redistribution of wealth themselves - numerous bands of thugs attacked passers-by and even student protestors, under the cameras of the international press. The gang infiltration followed less well-publicised attacks last year, when hundreds of kids from Paris' banlieus descended on a protest against education reforms and relieved the protesting youngsters of cash, mobile phones and iPods.
The behaviour of France's troublesome suburban young - where unemployment among the descendents of African and north African immigrants is often as high as fifty percent - has got so bad that at least one town has introduced a draconian law banning youngsters from circulating in groups of more than three.
Yet after all this, people in six European countries believe that Britain's yobs are the worst? Phew, our thugs must be bad. And they don't disappoint: The 95 percent of Brits who reckon the UK has the worst problem with thuggish youngsters definitely pushed our average over France. And yes, while the vast majority of anti-social acts in France are percieved to take place in and around the housing estates, in Britain the danger zones are town centres - pubs and nightclubs attract unpleasant drunken youths, and many if not most provincial towns and cities are close to no-go zones at chucking out time.
Tellingly, few Brits believe that anti-social behaviour can be lessened by "enhancing ethnic and cultural tolerance." While all nations believe that tougher sentencing will reduce yobbishness, in France just over 30 percent believe increasing ethnic tolerance will reduce anti-social behaviour. Many commentators blamed last year's riots on French racism: Most of the rioters came from immigrant families.
In Britain, the figure is less than ten percent. Some might argue that Brits are weary of politically correct lessons in tolerance and understanding, but it's more likely to reflect the fact that yobbishness is an equal-opportunities activity in Britain. Moreover, Britons are half as likely as Germans to tackle a gang of 14 year olds vandalising a bus shelter: Not so much out of lack of confidence as a rational fear that one of the kids might pull a knife on you, as has happened to some unfortunate adults in recent years.
Of course, many figures show that crime is at fairly low levels, at least in the UK. This hasn't contributed to a rising sense of insecurity, though, and the British government has waved figures showing falling crime to liberal newspapers while feeding publicity-friendly tough measures (anti-social behaviour orders - ASBOs - and Tony Blair's threat of marching young offenders to cash machine ATMs in order to withdraw instant fines) to populists.
All this must be music to the ears of the private security firm that commissioned the study. Indeed, ADT's managing director says that business can help in tackling the problem, though it's not clear how. Private security firms already supply CCTV cameras to private premises and city centres, but the fact that Brits are now among the most filmed people in Europe doesn't seem to have any effect on our security concerns. Perhaps the more crime we see, the more insecure we feel, even if the number of offences is falling.
