The French government has unveiled a new bill by President Francois Hollande to help the country's deprived suburbs, scene of unrest in recent years.
Some 5bn euros (£4.4bn; $6.6bn) of direct state investment would be injected next year into projects to generate jobs and improve housing.
Mr Hollande visited the troubled Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois this week.
He acknowledged that the "slow-burning fuse" of suburban unrest was still burning, but said it could be stopped.
"While this fuse burns slowly, we can stop it with projects that are long-term, very long-term,'' he said.
Such areas are home to large populations of recent immigrants and their descendants, often from France's former Muslim-majority colonies in North Africa, and have long challenged the country's social cohesion.
Rioting broke out two weeks ago in another Paris suburb, Trappes, after the arrest of a Muslim man who allegedly tried to strangle a police officer when police told his wife to remove a banned full face veil.
No-one for an instant believes the new initiative will resolve the tensions, but the president clearly wants to signal that he sees the suburbs as a priority, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.
NO AMOUNT OF MONEY WILL MAKE THESE PEOPLE LIVE AND ACT LIKE NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS.
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