News from France about the continuing Muslim riots seems to have been shut off like a spigot—even though nearly 500 cars were torched again last night. Here’s one of the few reports available, at canada.com: Residents to march in Paris to call for end to unrest. (Hat tip: Gerald.)

PARIS — Police tightened security in central Paris as exasperated residents of riot-torn suburbs prepared to march Friday near the Eiffel Tower to call for an end to more than two weeks of car burnings and vandalism across France.

As the unrest continued to decline, civic groups timed their call to march for the Armistice Day holiday - marking the end of the First World War - hours after the annual military parade for the commemoration. Police blocked off large swaths of central Paris, with trucks of riot police deployed along the Champs-Elysees and near the presidential palace.

Some 715 officers were brought in from other districts, raising the full deployment to 2,220.

“Today, we don’t want an armistice - we want peace,” national police Chief Michel Gaudin told reporters. “An armistice is a temporary halt. What we want is definitive peace for the suburbs.”

The unrest has weakened in intensity under state-of-emergency measures enacted Wednesday and a heavy police presence.

Overnight, a 15th consecutive night of violence saw fewer skirmishes and fewer cars burned - 463, down from 482 the previous night, police said.

“We have seen a continued drop beyond Paris, but persistence near the capital,” said national police spokesman Patrick Hamon. “We cannot yet claim victory, the drop remains fragile.”

Meanwhile, the Village Voice’s David Ng, safe in a “chi-chi” Paris cafe, says the riots were no big deal and CNN made it all up: CNN Got It Wrong.

On Monday, two French colleagues and I were talking at a chi-chi café in Paris when we saw a group of police officers in battle regalia boarding a bus just outside our window. “I think we can guess where they’re going,” one of my friends remarked. Sharp inhalations all around, followed by raised eyebrows.

Our awkward and nervous reaction to those policemen initially struck me as somewhat pitiful—a stinging example of the French bourgeoisie’s intellectual detachment from the riots in the city suburbs. Why were we sitting in this café? Why didn’t we march to Clichy-Sous-Bois, or La Courneuve, or Aulnay-Sous-Bois, where some of the most violent protests were taking place?

But now, with the riots finally winding down, the café culture’s reluctance to engage the riots—its choice of distance (or what the French call recul) seems the right response to the events of the past two weeks.