I do believe that one important point about videos like this revolves around your original thoughts about the issues portrayed in said videos. If you simply don’t have any sort of consideration regarding these social situations it’s clear that videos like this will promptly make you snap a judgement in a heartbeat.
If you have some extreme right winged ideas rooting the way you think surely this video shall give you some redundant “evidence” that you should start bashing minority’s heads around.
But if in fact you have more pacifistic ideas as a background, surely, one could look at this video as portrayal of “reality” more like a statement that this shit does happen, it can give you that jolt that could propel someone to act, trying to understand the roots of such behaviour as too elaborate ways of resolving this kind of violence.
As from my perspective, this violence is far from senseless. As humans we all respond based on several aspects, being them cultural, social, economic, religious or of any other nature. The fact is that we react based in what our reality is. This has roots in several facts that should be understood if we do hope to see this kind of violence come to an end.

Picture this, based on some sort of comfortable way of life that some of us have, the most some of us will do is type some words on a blog, without actually trying to react effectively in a proactive manner to resolve said issues… Maybe that alone is some sort of baby step towards that attitude.

2) There’s no reason why a music video shouldn’t explore, artistically, an issue or setting or characters like this. But you have to understand that it can’t do it the same way, or perhaps in the same depth, as, say, a film like La Haine.

3) The gang aren’t supposed to represent people on the estate - that’s made clear by the resident in the high-rise giving the gang the finger and shouting abuse at them. It’s not homogenising the residents of the bainlieues (spelling? Sorry!), because it’s showing these guys threatening and terrorising the residents of the estates as well as the central Parisians and tourists.

4) I think it’s worth noting, particularly given Romain-Gavras’ rich-kid, hipster background, that if you watch all the way to the end of the video, the guys making the film are set on fire and beaten senseless by the young guys they’re filming. There are obviously different ways of reading this, but I think it’s perfectly valid to see that as a pretty self-aware statement by Romain-Gavras et al. The video punishes the guys making the film, possibly suggesting that they’re naive, and/or deserving of punishment for their voyeurism and fetishism of this violence, and the deprived social conditions that creates it.

I realise that’s kind of circular idea, but it’s an interesting, and valid, one.

5) the Justice bomber jackets are interesting, and kind of difficult to read… Are they playing on the idea of “Justice”? making a statement on the religious references that their music makes? Continuing the idea of ignorant and naive exploitation and fetishism of minority cultures by upper-class/white musicians? Or are they just trying to associate themselves with urban grittiness and “realness”?

The fact that the film has got me thinking and reasoning like this is pretty impressive on it’s own. Plus, it hits you between the eyes.