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Home Page Headlines World News National U.S. Opinions Business Politics Sports Technology & Science Health Entertainment Travel Weather Germany Votes Key events of the year 2004 Turkish Web Directory About Us Advertise Feedback |  | # Violence spreads in Paris suburbs 11-02-2005, 00h38 PARIS (AFP)
A damaged lorry in the northern Paris suburb of Sevran after gangs of youths clashed with police and torched cars and trash cans overnight for the sixth straight night following the death by electrocution of two boys trying to escape from police, October 27, 2005. Gangs of youths in towns around Paris clashed with police and torched cars and trash cans overnight as riots that have plagued one poor, high-immigrant suburb for almost a week spread to other areas near the French capital. (AFP)

Gangs of youths in towns around Paris clashed with police and torched cars and trash cans overnight as riots that have plagued one poor, high-immigrant suburb for almost a week spread to other areas near the French capital, police and local authorities said.

The epicentre of the trouble, which first erupted last Thursday following the deaths of two teenagers, is the poor northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois in the Seine-Saint-Denis department.

Police sources on Wednesday reported some 60 vehicles torched throughout the Seine-Saint-Denis area overnight.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio that 34 people were arrested in the latest night of violence, which has gone on unabated despite his vow to crack down with "firmness and justice".

He also issued a statement cancelling a trip next week to Pakistan and Afghanistan to tackle the worsening situation.

In the towns of Aulnay-sous-Bois and Sevran, gangs of stone-throwing youths were met by police firing disabling rubber 'flash-balls' to disperse them. One departmental spokesman admitted it had been "a rough night."

There was less trouble overnight in Clichy-sous-Bois itself, partly due to the heavy police presence there. Tensions ran high among the suburb's large Muslim community, however, following the firing of a police teargas grenade against a mosque during clashes overnight Sunday.

The outbreaks of trouble in other suburbs ringing Paris posed a big problem for security forces.

Cars were torched and police reported sporadic incidents involving groups of youths in Val-d'Oise to the north of the capital and Seine-et-Marne to the southeast with lesser violence reported in Yvelines to the west.

Observers saw the riots as a sign of growing divisions in French society -- Muslim immigration, poverty, declining education standards in downtrodden areas, joblessness -- laid bare.

The left-leaning newspaper Liberation said successive governments had "broken their noses on the reality of the ghettos, often minimised and often forgotten in their priorities."

It urged an end to the spiral of rebellion and repression because "we have to urgently get rid of the risk of contagion."

President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin have come under fire from the opposition Socialist Party for their "inexcusable" silence over the violence, but most anger has been directed at Sarkozy, who has made it clear he intends to be a candidate in 2007 presidential elections on a tough law-and-order platform.

"When an interior minister doesn't hesitate to use insulting terms, branding as 'rabble' communities which have the misfortune to be fragile and wanting to turn water-cannon on them, it is the image of the country that is tarnished," the Socialists said in a statement.

Sarkozy, who is also leader of France's ruling UMP party, vowed to wage a "war without mercy" on crime in the Paris suburbs a week before the rampages began.

The violence in Clichy-sous-Bois erupted after two youths, aged 15 and 17, were electrocuted trying to run away from a police identity check in the street. They had scaled the wall of a relay station and touched a transformer.

Villepin has moved to take charge of the government's response. His office said he was pushing back his departure for a trip to Canada Wednesday to attend a parliamentary session certain to be dominated by the riots.

On Tuesday, he issued a statement calling for "a return to calm" after meeting the families of the two dead teenagers.

Sarkozy, who had tried to see the angry families but was rejected by them as "very, very incompetent", was also invited to Villepin's office for the talks.

In an interview with Le Parisien newspaper Wednesday, Sarkozy defended his hardline policies by saying they had brought down petty crime by eight percent each year, and that some poor suburbs had come under "the rule of gangs, of drugs, of traffickers".

"The feeling of exclusion, clandestine immigration and the high level of unemployment creates considerable problems," he said.

Suburbs auch as Clichy-sous-Bois suffer from unemployment rates over twice the national average, which is already relatively high at around 10 percent.

Tuesday night's violence included less of the direct clashes between youths and police seen on previous nights in Clichy-sous-Bois, police and municipal sources said.

AFP

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