In the Heart of Paris, an African Beat - New York Times

The Washington Post's review of Moroccan restaurants in Paris has everything to do with wealthy Parisian chic and almost nothing to do with North Africa. No wonder people of North African descent are alienated in Paris.

The Post describes the scene at the restaurant 404 as follows:

"She" is a young woman in black who is celebrating a birthday in official 404 fashion: by gyrating on top of the bar with her shirt halfway raised in an attempt at belly dancing. Throughout the stylish restaurant-lounge - a perennial hot spot done up with casbah-cool d�cor - tables of media and fashion types abandon their bottles of Algerian Ch�teau Tellagh red wine, take out their digital cameras and mount the banquettes.

The "Arabian" scene in Paris sounds like nothing so much as post colonial French self indulgence.