The company, based in the Paris suburbs, was responsible for building the gallery's infamous entrance -- the Louvre pyramid -- in 1989.

CNN: VINCI boss to Europe: Build and growth will come

Widad, a 25-year-old secretary of Algerian origin, notes that when she was a schoolchild in Les Yvelines, in the Paris suburbs, four-fifths of her class were North African and only a handful went on to study for the baccalaureate, the school-leaving certificate that is the essential passport to a university or a reasonable job.

ECONOMIST: France's Muslims

There are lots of ways for people in the suburbs of Paris, Washington, or New York to get into the city center, including driving.

FORBES: The Arrogance of Suburbia

The featurette, set in the summertime, brings a mother and daughter from the suburbs of Paris to a vacation apartment that Sylvain manages and pulls them gradually but inexorably into his phlegmatic vortex of chaos.

NEWYORKER: A World Without Women

The Middle East is still the crucible of Islam: so much that affects American diplomacy around the rest of the world, from Pakistan to Indonesia, Nigeria, and even the suburbs of Paris, has its starting point here.

ECONOMIST: America and the Middle East