French riot claims first fatality Paris - Riots in France's poor city suburbs appeared to be spiralling out of control on Monday after the worst night of violence so far and the first death, deepening the severest unrest to engulf the nation since the 1968 student uprisings. Police said several officers were hurt, some by shots, and 1 400 vehicles were torched across the country overnight, with the unrest spreading to the provinces. "The shockwave has spread from Paris to the provinces," said Michel Gaudin, director-general of the national police, at a press conference in the capital. A 61-year-old man beaten into a coma by a hooded youth in the northern suburb of Stains died in hospital, according to his widow, who called for the aggressor to be "punished". It was the first death recorded since the troubles began. Youths predominantly from France's large Arab-Muslim minority have rampaged through out-of-town neighbourhoods for 11 straight nights, setting fire to vehicles, businesses and public buildings and attacking police with stones and other missiles. Police figures showed 1 408 vehicles were destroyed overnight, up on the previous record of 1 300 on Saturday, and 395 people arrested. Most of the cars, nearly 1 000, were in towns and cities outside Paris, reflecting the way the violence has spread from its original flashpoint. In addition 36 policemen were injured overnight, also the worst figure to date, amid signs that rioters were deliberately seeking out clashes with the security forces. At Grigny in the southern Paris suburbs two police officers were rushed to hospital after being hit by gunshots in what colleagues said was an ambush by a gang of youths. "Their aim is to get us. It is to kill policemen," an officer who witnessed the incident told Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy who visited their headquarters overnight. The head of the union of French magistrates, Dominique Barella, told AFP that courts were becoming overwhelmed by the number of defendants sent before them because of the violence. "It's impossible! We don't have the means in the prosecution offices to operate like emergency services," he said. Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States have all issued public advisories recommending that tourists to France exercise caution because of the violence. The unrest, sparked October 27 by the accidental deaths of two teenagers in an electrical sub-station in a northern Paris suburb, has fanned across the country in a ritual of copycat attacks by disaffected youths complaining of economic misery and social discrimination. Few regions of the country have been spared, with riots Sunday night in the southern towns of Toulouse, Toulon and Draguignan, Strasbourg in the east and Nantes in the west. Tourist centres such as the Loire valley town of Blois and Quimper in Brittany were also hit. Among the rioters' targets have been churches, nursery and primary schools, town-halls and police stations as well as warehouses, car dealerships and a film-studio at Asnieres outside Paris. In the Normandy city of Rouen, rioters used a car as a battering-ram against a police station. Overall more than 5 000 cars have been burned and more than 1 000 people arrested since the beginning of the trouble, which is the worst to hit France since the May student uprising in 1968. Car fires overnight in the Belgian and German capitals had police on edge that youths there were maybe copying the violence on their home turf. President Jacques Chirac intervened personally for the first time, summoning an inner cabinet meeting late Sunday and declaring that "the absolute priority is the re-establishment of security and public order." "The last word must belong to the law. Those who want to sow violence or fear must be caught, judged and punished," he said. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin promised reinforcements for police and said fast-track justice procedures would be set up to cope with the number of arrests. "We will not accept any lawless zone," he said. Several politicians have begun to call for curfews in the worst-hit areas. A leading Muslim group, the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF), issued a fatwa telling Muslims not to join in the violence. The group, which espouses a radical interpretation of Islam close to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, is the largest component of the umbrella French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM). - Sapa-AFP Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-11-07 06:59:46 © Independent Online 2005. All rights reserved. IOL publishes this article in good faith but is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on the information it contains.