No normal French citizen could be happy with appalling images of the following kind, which reoccur sadly every New Year's Eve, when certain individuals get a kick out of burning automobiles, forcing firemen to risk their lives extinguishing these absurd blazes:
This year, some 1,147 went up in flames in this crazy fashion. It's easy for mindless vandals to get away with such acts, since an automobile can be torched almost as easily and rapidly as lighting a cigarette. The victims of this madness are the innocent owners of destroyed vehicles, who might even be prevented from earning their living as a result of the loss of their automobile.
While everybody is surely reassured to discover that no less a man than Nicolas Sarkozy himself is disgusted with this plague, and determined to eradicate it, the means suggested by the president are somewhat bizarre. What he suggests is a weird kind of indirect punishment for young vandals who burn automobiles. A condemned youth would be prohibited from passing his test, in the hope of obtaining a driver's license, for as long as he hasn't reimbursed the cost of the automobile(s) he happened to burn.
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