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Firefighters extinguish a warehouse set ablaze in Aulnay-sous-Bois. Arson attacks flared overnight around Paris and police made more than 30 arrests as the worst violence the capital has seen in decades dragged on into its ninth straight night. (AFP)

Firemen battled blazes set by gangs of youths around Paris into the early hours of Saturday, as the worst violence the capital has seen in decades dragged on into its ninth straight night.

Some 220 vehicles were set alight around the city, especially in the restive northern suburbs at the epicentre of the troubles which have left authorities powerless despite the deployment of hundreds of riot police since last week.

A hundred people were evacuated overnight from two apartment blocks in that region when one arson attack set dozens of cars in an underground garage on fire.

Two textile warehouses and a car showroom were also set on fire to the northeast of the city.

Police said more than 50 people were arrested, some of them minors caught with fire-bombs.

Copycat incidents on a smaller scale were also reported in the southern cities of Toulouse and Nice, and in the northern cities of Lille and Rennes.

The intensity of violence was lower than in previous nights, however, as the youths from low-income, high-immigration neighbourhoods behind the unrest mostly avoided clashes with police, preferring to run away after setting the fires.

Only in a few cases were bottles, stones and Molotov cocktails thrown at officers and firemen responding to the blazes, in contrast with previous nights.

The new round of rampages came just hours after Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin held a crisis meeting late Friday with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on the riots, which were the worst since a 1968 student revolt.

Sarkozy later made a surprise visit to a police command centre west of Paris, telling officers: "Arrests -- that's the key."

He urged them to get more information on those causing the trouble "so we can better understand how they're organised, because they are organised."

Much of the blame for the prolonged fury in the streets has been aimed at Sarkozy and his hardline policies designed to clean up the crime-ridden suburbs. He has referred to the trouble-makers as "rabble" and vowed to clean their neighbourhoods "with a power-hose."

The Muslim youths waging the violence have responded in interviews by demanding Sarkozy's resignation -- a position echoed by the opposition Communist and Greens parties -- and solutions to the economic misery, racial discrimination and provocative policing they suffer.

A few shots have been fired at police, without causing injury, and at least two people -- a handicapped woman and a fireman -- have been severely burnt by Molotov cocktails in past nights.

The riots were sparked October 27, when two teenagers were electrocuted in a tough, low-income suburb north of Paris as they hid in an electrical sub-station to flee a police identity check.

Since then, overwhelmed police have found themselves powerless to stop the conflagration, which has seen a total of over 1,200 vehicles torched and more than 250 people arrested.

The leader of one police union, Bruno Beschizza, has described the riots as "urban terrorism", but Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe of the opposition Socialist Party warned against hastily lumping together "one religion, Islam, and a few extremists" in apportioning blame.

AFP

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