France to receive aid from European Union

From the BBC:

France has been offered 50m euros ($59m; £34m) by the European Union to help recover from more than two weeks of rioting in poor city suburbs.

European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said up to 1bn euros could be made available eventually for job creation and to help social cohesion.

Why? This isn't a natural disaster like the Asian tsunami or Katrina, and it seems to me that the French need to take some responsibility and deal with their own social problems without relying on the rest of Europe. After all, where would that 1 billion Euros come from? From other member-states, obviously. Why should they pay to help fix France's problems -- problems of France's own making?

It's no wonder the E.U. is so widely unpopular throughout Europe.