In the harsh light of an underground parking lot in this grim suburb northwest of Paris, the guns and lighters are imaginary - but the sense of aggression is real. As one of the young men films with a digital camera, the others move to the angry beat of music blasting out of an open car door, echoing into the dark December night.

They sing about the riots that erupted two months ago, about being Muslim and about not feeling French in France. For them the unrest is not over, it is waiting to break loose again. "The quiet is deceptive," said Bala "Balastik" Coulibaly, 24, of nearby Clichy-sous-Bois, his eyes scanning the deserted parking lot from deep inside his sweatshirt as he took a break between two songs.

It was in Clichy that the accidental death of two teenagers on Oct. 27 set off three weeks of rioting in immigrant neighborhoods across France.

Since then, the whiff of gasoline and tear gas has disappeared. But the calm is fragile, impatient and tinged with the cynicism of youths who fear being let down again by a political class that allowed mass unemployment and social exclusion to accumulate over three decades in the poor suburbs ringing France's big cities.

"The rage in the suburbs is only asleep," said Balastik, a French youth of Mauritanian origin who has been jobless since dropping out of school seven years ago and is dreaming of a career as a rapper with his band, Styladone. "It wouldn't take much to wake it up again."

Social workers and nongovernmental organizations working in the suburbs say they are managing the calm from one day to the next. The police are on high alert ahead of what promises to be a tense New Year's Eve in France, where even in normal years hundreds of cars are torched. "The apparent calm that reigns today should not suggest that the real problem is solved," the French police intelligence service, the Renseignements Generaux, said in a report leaked to Le Parisien newspaper this month. Indeed, a Nov. 10 ban on sales of gasoline in plastic containers remains in place, as does a state of emergency that allows the local authorities to impose a curfew and gives special powers to the police.

"New Year's is a concern every year," said Franck Louvrier, the Interior Ministry spokesman. "But after the riots we are more vigilant than usual. That is one reason why we extended the state of emergency to February." In the first three weeks of November, about 10,000 cars were torched and several hundred public buildings vandalized across France in the worst social unrest since the student-worker rebellion in 1968. Some 4,770 people were taken into custody for suspected rioting. Convicted youths without French nationality face possible expulsion from the country. At the same time, the government announced a raft of measures aimed at fighting joblessness and discrimination, and declared 2006 the year of "equal opportunity."

Businesses will be offered tax breaks for setting up shop in difficult suburbs, local schools will receive more attention, a new apprenticeship program for teenagers is being drawn up, and state funds for nongovernmental organizations that were canceled three years ago will be restored.

President Jacques Chirac, clearly shaken by the riots, has urged French media and businesses to reflect the country's diverse population. The minister for equal opportunity, Azouz Begag, is pondering ways of measuring diversity in order to provide companies with a benchmark. But in suburbs like Bondy and Clichy-sous-Bois, the buzz and debate sparked by the riots are dismissed by many as little more than political posturing.

"Right now they're afraid of us, so they're making a lot of promises," said a friend of Balastik's, Ker, 23, whose parents are from Cambodia and who sings in the same band. "What we need is concrete action that is felt, here, on the ground." According to Marilou Jampolsky, a spokeswoman for SOS Racisme, an organization fighting discrimination, no NGO has seen its funds restored yet, though that, she said, would have been one of the quickest ways for the government to make a "tangible" difference in people's lives.

Outside the Clichy-sous-Bois city hall, Mehdi, 24, who also works for an NGO for disadvantaged youth, confirmed that he had not seen any of the new funds promised by the government.

"The faster some of the promises are transformed into action the better," said Mehdi, a Frenchman of Algerian-Moroccan origin who grew up in Clichy.

"We are taking the temperature with people every day. They are waiting for changes that they feel in everyday life - and they are also waiting for justice for the two dead teenagers." The trigger for the November violence was the accidental electrocution of two teenagers of African origin who hid in a power substation. A third teenager, who survived the incident, says the three friends were being pursued by police, a claim officers deny.

The outcome of an investigation is keenly awaited in the suburbs. If the police are exonerated, it could trigger new unrest, said Mehdi, who, like others interviewed for this article, did not give his last name.

Back in the parking lot in Bondy, Balastik mimes lighting a lighter, his eyes glimmering in the harsh neon light. One of his friends is wearing a red T-shirt with a big caption that reads "Rakaille" - a rap spelling of "racaille," or "thugs," which is what Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called the rioters at one point, fueling their anger.

"We're thugs and we're proud," Balastik quipped, adding that music was "one way of dealing with the frustration of never getting a reply to your job application." Others channel their anger differently. Cars have continued to burn every night since the riots ended, including more than 100 across France on Christmas Eve.

Some NGOs have launched a campaign with minority celebrities like the rap singer Joey Starr and the comedian Jamel Debbouze to get suburban youths to register for the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections. Only 7,000 of the 28,000 inhabitants of Clichy-sous-Bois are registered voters, according to a local official.

"One thing the riots have shown is that these kids are desperate for attention," said Samir Mihi, a social worker in Clichy-sous-Bois. "We're trying to tell them that you matter most when you vote, that's when politicians have to start listening to you." He said he was concerned that a new outbreak of violence - or even intensified media coverage of burning cars on New Year's Eve - would strengthen parties with anti-immigrant platforms.

In a poll published by the newspaper Le Monde earlier this month, more than one in six respondents felt there were too many immigrants in France.

"The more people are afraid, the more they will demand security policies rather than social policies," Mihi said. "That is precisely what is not in the interest of these kids." But Balastik and his friends are unimpressed.

"I've never seen a politician represent me in my life," said Ker, who went to school with a brother of one of the teenagers who were killed at the power station. "Why vote if nothing ever changes anyway?"