Sir, - Lara Marlowe's report (August 22nd), on the rising tide of crime in her adopted homeland provided a telling insight into the genesis of this problem, though perhaps not quite in the way she intended.
In her feature, Ms Marlowe charts a seemingly inexorable surge in burglaries, assaults and carjackings in France and bemoans the fact that in terms of a convincing solution, none has yet been put forward. Even President Chirac appears at a loss to adequately explain this frightening trend - preferring instead to resort to the traditional fallback of blaming his Prime Minister, Mr Jospin.
However, the closing paragraph of your Paris correspondent's article provides the answers the French are so urgently seeking.
Subjected to a horrific attack by teenage thieves, an unfortunate woman reflects on her ordeal and decides that her assailants aren't to blame. They were, after all, simply expressing their anger at a system that has failed them.
This remarkable denouement to an otherwise excellent piece of reportage tells us all we need to know about a Western society in which those who commit violent crime against the life and property of law-abiding individuals are now seen as the real victims. Disaffection, disadvantage, exclusion - even racism, all are put forward to excuse criminality and erase responsibility.
Thuggery and theft are legitimised as forms of self-expression, a response to the perceived unfairness of the "system". Society, yet again, is to blame.
Under relentless battering from this new orthodoxy, church, State and parents have largely abandoned their duty in offering children moral guidance and leadership. Good and evil are derided as old fashioned, redundant constructs.
People surround themselves with fences, walls and burglar alarms, wondering why it is happening to them. In theory, the solution is a restoration of a value system comprising decency, obedience, respect and hard work. In practice, of course, the libertarian revolution of the late 20th century has ensured that this can never happen. - Yours, etc.,
Philip Donnelly, Maynooth, Co Kildare.