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## France enjoys break from riots, but polygamy theory stirs tension

November 18, 2005

BY JOCELYN GECKER

PARIS -- French streets were relatively peaceful overnight after three weeks of unrest, police said Thursday. But protest has erupted amid suggestions that polygamy played a role in the violence.

Human rights groups are reacting with outrage to comments by French officials who have said polygamy is one of the reasons youths from underprivileged Muslim households have been rioting.

France's League of Human Rights called the comments ''sickening and irresponsible,'' while the anti-racist group MRAP said that such remarks would only feed the ''racism and exclusion'' that incited youths to riot.

Over the past three weeks, the rioting spurred by widespread allegations of racism and discrimination spread to nearly 300 towns and cities and involved violent exchanges of stones and tear gas between youths and police.

Lack of father figure blamed

Almost 3,000 youths -- many of them French-born children of North and West African immigrants -- have been arrested. At the peak 1,408 vehicles were burned in a single night. But police said the number of vehicles set ablaze late Wednesday and early Thursday fell to just 98, the lowest tally yet.

The violence sparked intense debate over France's failure to integrate minorities and forced the government to confront problems of racism and poverty.

That debate grew more strident after Labor Minister Gerard Larcher was quoted as saying that youths from large polygamous families often had social behavioral problems, stemming from lack of a father figure.

At the same time, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was quoted as saying that polygamy is one of the cultural differences that ''makes it more difficult to integrate a French youth of African origin with a French youth of another origin.''

The reaction was immediate. One group, the League of Human Rights, said in a statement that the comments were provocative and ''knowingly took the risk of reinforcing xenophobia and racism.''

AP

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