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# Police arrest 22 over Paris riots ### A police union spokesman says a Paris suburb is seeing "civil war." ### YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS France Riots Paris (France) Nicolas Sarkozy or Create Your Own Manage Alerts | What Is This? PARIS, France (Reuters) -- French police have taken 22 youths into custody for questioning after three nights of riots in a northeastern suburb of Paris, officials said Sunday. Overnight, groups of young people threw bottles, rocks and set more than a dozen cars ablaze. Nobody was hurt but nine people were detained by police. Thirteen youths were taken into custody on Friday night, police and local officials said. The violence began three days ago among residents of Clichy-Sous-Bois over the deaths of two teenagers who were electrocuted while fleeing police. "There were some cars ablaze and some arrests, but nothing like what we saw in the two previous nights," a police spokesman said, noting the rioting did not last as long. On Friday night, youths set garbage bins and cars ablaze and also fired a shot at police in the suburb, where many of the 28,000 residents are immigrants, mainly from Africa. Sixteen people were lightly injured in Friday's violence. Hundreds of residents silently marched through the suburb on Saturday in an appeal for calm and to pay their respects to the two dead teenagers, whom media identified as 15-year-old Banou and 17-year-old Ziad, both believed to be of African origin. Prosecutor Francois Molins said the two boys were killed and a third injured at a power sub-station as they fled police investigating the scene of a nearby break-in. "They started to run because the other youths were running," he said on Saturday. The three adolescents were "no delinquents", he said, adding: "They thought they were being chased although that was not the case." Judicial and internal police authorities have opened investigations into the events. ### 'Dormant volcano' Police sources said the situation seemed to have calmed down in Clichy-Sous-Bois, a neighborhood of high-rise public housing projects, but they urged caution. "It is like a dormant volcano. It could erupt again any time, but in general, these kind of riots don't last longer than 48 hours," said a police source who had been at the scene during the riots on Thursday night. Many northeastern suburbs, where immigrants and families from poor backgrounds live in Soviet-style housing estates, have become notorious for youth violence. In June, an 11-year old boy was killed by a stray bullet in northern La Courneuve. The eastern suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine made headlines in 2002 when a 17-year old girl was set alight by an 18-year old boy whose friends stood nearby. The recent riots came days after Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy launched a new offensive against crime this month, ordering specially trained police to tackle 25 tough neighborhoods in cities across France. Sarkozy has also said that all police cars should be equipped with cameras. The minister, who has stated his ambition to run for president in 2007, is to receive the families of the victims on Monday. The tough-talking Sarkozy, whose law and order policies have been criticized by human rights groups, made his name by cutting headline crime figures during his first stint as interior minister from 2002 to 2004. Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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