PARIS — A partial Wikileaks-leaked cable written in November 2005 by the American Embassy in Paris, most likely to the Secretary of State’s office sheds light on violence in France and the government’s reaction to violence in the suburbs of Paris.

The memo recounts the analysis of the situation in the cités, or projects, by French Judge Jean-Francois Ricard, who investigates terrorism.

The residents of these areas, often immigrants, have lost respect for the French government and thus symbols of authority, such as police and firemen, have become targeted as “assassins.”

Increased unrest in the cités could also be due to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s October 2005 announcement of increased police presence in the cités, the memo says.

Gangs and radical Islamic groups have exceptional power in the cités, and have made it their goal to rid their neighborhoods of French governmental influence.

“Inhabitants developed a sense of being apart from French society, and over time, became proud of this,” the memo says.

According to the document, in a October 25, 2005 interview with the Le Monde newspaper, Sarkozy, then the Minister of the Interior of France, said 9,000 police vehicles in France had been stoned since January 2005, and “between 20 and 40” vehicles were burned every night.

Ricard, who spent time as a judge in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny, said the French government has known for 20 years that the suburbs have become dangerously anarchist and has tried and failed to integrate the suburbs into the French identity.

According to the memo, many who critique the situation blame the low socio-economic situation in the cités for the unrest, but Ricard said the real problem is not always poverty, but rather a resentment of feeling ignored by the French government.

“The combination of setting oneself apart, real and/or imagined grievances against the government of France, state inattention and the interests of gangs and other groups, including the Islamists, to accentuate this divide, has led to the current unrest,” Ricard said.

As a result, to solve the problems, the French government needs to increase its presence in these areas, Ricard says in the memo.

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the children who were featured in “Slumdog Millionaire”, one of the most popular and celebrated films of last year grossing more than $340 million worldwide.

A little while ago, the father of one of those outrageously cute and innocent children was accused of trying to sell his child like some sort of commodity. Slumdog director Danny Boyle was accused of exploiting the already poor kids, which he has strongly denied. It’s been in the news for a while.

To ease some of the tension, the film’s makers set up education funds for the children and donated nearly $800,000 to a Mumbai charity that aids slum-dwelling children in Mumbai, India’s cultural hub.

But many of kids featured in the film, though just a small fraction of India’s immense poverty-stricken landscape, still live the slums.

This morning I was trolling the online news world as has become a routine for me. I usually come across at least one story that really, really interests me and that’s the one I choose to relay on to the faithful readers here at Blast.

So when I was reading BBC news I came across an article about the child actor Azzharuddin Mohammed Ismail, who played the youngest version of Salim in Slumdog, and his family.

His home, located just outside a Mumbai slum, is comprised of just plastic sheets supported by long bamboo sticks. It was torn down recently by the city to make room for a “public garden.” They said his family were squatters and were living there illegally.

“We are homeless, we have nowhere to go” said Azharuddin. He told BBC that he was sleeping when the demolition group, funded by the city, came and ripped his house apart, apparently giving his family no advance notice.

What’s really sad is Azharuddin and his co-star Rubina Ali, who played the youngest Latika in the film, were both apparently promised housing by local housing authorities. However, a decision on whether or not to actually honor their word is still pending.

Azzharuddin’s mother, Shamim Ismail, said that the promises made to her by the housing authorities and the film’s makers had not yet materialized. She also, according to BBC, vocalized a serious doubt that the promises would ever be fulfilled.

This would be a good time for Boyle and the studio to step in and help these two families. The film, in addition to its eight Oscars, made more than $340 million at the box office. Add rentals and purchases to that and the thing is a powerhouse that cost very little to make. And while the contributions that Boyle and the studio have made are formidable and noble, they need to swing more than just $800,000 and some educations funds the kids’ way. It wasn’t their responsibility to help the kids until they were put in front of a camera.

Now it’s very important that they do.

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Dear EarthTalk: What is “microfinance” and how does it help poor countries and preserve the environment? – Eliza Clark, Seattle, WA

The brainchild of Grameen Foundation founder Muhammad Yunus, microfinance is a form of banking whereby financial institutions offer small loans to the poor. The idea behind the concept, which originated in Bangladesh in the mid 1970s, is that motivated and disciplined poor people could climb out of poverty if they had access to funding-even small amounts-that help get businesses off the ground. With access to revolving loan funds, these “micro-entrepreneurs” can build businesses, pay back the borrowed money, and continue to provide for themselves and their families in a sustainable manner.

A classic example would be a woman who borrows $50 to buy chickens so she can sell eggs to other members of her community. As her chickens multiply, she can sell more eggs, and eventually she can sell chicks as well. She pays back the money and has climbed out of a perhaps desperate situation financially-and the community benefits from having a new source of nutritious food.

“Having access to money to start a small business isn’t about fulfilling a dream, it’s literally about keeping their families one step ahead of starvation and putting a roof over their heads,” says Tracey Turner, founder of MicroPlace, an online “microfinance marketplace” launched by eBay in 2007. Individuals can put small or large amounts of money on MicroPlace and get a rate of return in the two- to three-percent range-better than a donation-and get the satisfaction of knowing that their cash is helping someone in a developing country improve their lot and that of their impoverished community.

On the environmental front, microfinance is, in and of itself, “green” in that it promotes businesses that can be sustained indefinitely. Example after example over the last three decades have proven the concept that when poor people are given opportunities to earn a living in a legitimate and sustainable fashion, they have little or no need to pillage their surrounding natural resources to shelter or feed themselves. Also, most of the financial institutions involved in microfinance hold up sustainability as a precondition for awarding loans. Others encourage greener businesses by offering lower interest rates to borrowers with sustainability-oriented plans.

While upstarts like MicroPlace and Kiva (which operates on a similar model whereby individual investors can get in on the microlending fun) are grabbing most of the microfinance headlines these days, Grameen Bank was the first microfinance lender in the world, initiating its first project in 1976 in the Bangladeshi village of Jobra. Today Grameen does a lot more than just offer small loans. It also accepts deposits and provides other banking services, and runs several development-oriented businesses including fabric, telephone and energy companies. And it has spawned thousands of other institutions doing similar things: World Bank statistics show that more than 7,000 microfinance institutions serve some 16 million people in developing countries with $7 billion in outstanding loans, 97 percent of which are repaid.

In 2006, Grameen founder Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

CONTACTS: Grameen Bank, www.grameen-info.org, MicroPlace, www.microplace.com; Kiva, www.kiva.org.

Dear EarthTalk: What is the so-called “smart grid” I’ve been hearing about, and how can it save energy and money? — Larry Burger, Litchfield, CT

America’s electricity grid is built upon what many consider to be an antiquated principle: Make large amounts of electricity and have it always available to end users whether they need it or not. It’s much like the way most home water heaters work in keeping water constantly hot even when it is not being used. It is also a strictly one-way relationship with utilities supplying power to end users, but not also vice-versa.

The smart grid concept is predicated on a two-way flow of energy-and information-between electricity generators and end users. The system not only delivers power to end users as needed, depending on demand; it also gathers power from end users that produce their own-homes and businesses that generate solar, wind or geothermal power themselves-when they have more than they need.

Some 42 states and Washington, DC already require utilities to have systems in place to buy excess energy generated by their customers. But, writes journalist Michael Prager in E – The Environmental Magazine, “because they can’t know in real time that power is coming in, utilities generate as much as they would have anyway.” He adds that when information flows both ways, end users will be able to send information back to the grid specifying how much power they need and when they will need it. They’ll also be able to communicate when they have excess power available to upload to the grid.

On the forefront of research into the feasibility of the smart grid on a large scale is the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Systems Center, established in 2008 by the National Science Foundation and headquartered at North Carolina State University. FREEDM is partnering with universities, industry and national laboratories in 28 states and nine countries to develop technologies they say will “revolutionize the nation’s power grid and speed renewable electric-energy technologies into every home and business.” So far, some 60 utilities, alternative energy startups, electrical equipment manufacturers and other firms have signed onto the new partnership.

One such utility, Colorado-based Xcel Energy, has even begun to put smart grid technology into practice on a trial basis for a small percentage of its customer base. The utility has spent some $100 million outfitting 35,000 homes and businesses in and around the city of Boulder with automation and communications capabilities to enable two-way communication of electricity needs.

Xcel won’t have enough data to assess energy and cost savings until early 2010, but analysts are optimistic that the utility’s costly experiment will reap benefits down the road for consumers, utilities and the environment. Indeed, environmentalists and economists alike have high hopes that widespread implementation of such “intelligent” systems could help usher in a new age of unprecedented energy efficiency, emissions reductions and cost savings around the United States and beyond.

CONTACTS: Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Systems Center, www.freedm.ncsu.edu; Xcel Energy, www.xcelenergy.com.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.