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Today: November 09, 2005 at 5:41:38 PST

# French Rioting Appears to Lose Strength

By D'ARCY DORAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS (AP) -

1108dv-france-tuesday France's storm of rioting lost strength Wednesday, with car burnings falling nearly by half, police said. But looters and vandals still defied a state of emergency with attacks on superstores, a newspaper warehouse and a subway station.

The extraordinary 12-day state of emergency, which went into effect Tuesday at midnight, covered Paris, its suburbs and more than 30 other French cities from the Mediterranean to the border with Germany and to Rouen in the north - an indication of how widespread arson, riots and other unrest have become in nearly two weeks of violence.

The emergency decree invoked a 50-year-old security law that dates to France's colonial war in Algeria. It empowers officials to put troublemakers under house arrest, ban or limit the movement of people and vehicles, confiscate weapons and close public spaces where gangs gather. It also paved the way for curfews in areas where officials feel they are needed.

Seventy-three percent of respondents in a poll published Wednesday in daily Le Parisien said they agreed with the curfew.

The unrest started Oct. 27 as a localized riot in a northeast Paris suburb angry over the accidental deaths of two teenagers, of Mauritanian and Tunisian descent, who were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation.

It has grown into a nationwide insurrection by disillusioned suburban youths, many of them French-born children of immigrants from France's former territories like Algeria. France's suburbs have long been neglected, and their youth complain of a lack of jobs and widespread discrimination. Many of the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants are Muslim, but police say the violence is not being driven by Islamic groups.

Overnight Tuesday-Wednesday, youths torched 617 vehicles, down from 1,173 a night earlier, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. Incidents were reported in 116 towns, down from 226. Police made 280 arrests, raising the total to 1,830 since the violence erupted 13 nights ago. An estimated 11,500 police officers were deployed overnight to maintain order, up 1,000 from the previous night.

Riot police fired tear gas to disperse youths throwing gasoline bombs in the southwestern city of Toulouse, and rioters exploded an unoccupied bus powered by natural-gas with Molotov cocktails in the town of Bassens, near Bordeaux. No injuries were reported.

Officials were forced to shut down the southern city of Lyon's subway system after a firebomb exploded in a station late Tuesday, a regional government spokesman said. No one was hurt. Transport officials were to decide Wednesday morning when service could resume, the spokesman said.

Arsonists also set fire to a warehouse used by the Nice-Matin newspaper in Grasse, national police spokesman Patrick Reydy said. Youths looted and set fire to a furniture and electronics store and an adjacent carpet store in Arras, in the north, he said.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, detailing the measures to parliament on Tuesday, said riot police faced "determined individuals, structured gangs, organized criminality." Police say rioters have been using mobile phone text messages and the Internet to organize arson attacks.

The northern city of Amiens, central Orleans and Savigny-sur-Orge, and the Essonne region south of the capital were putting into place curfews for minors, who must be accompanied by adults at night. Two cars burned in Amiens overnight despite the curfew, compared to six a night earlier, police said.

Curfew violators face up to two months in jail and a $4,400 fine, the Justice Ministry said. Minors face one month in jail.

The 50-year-old state-of-emergency law was drawn up to quell unrest in Algeria during its war of independence from France, and was last used in December 1984 by the Socialist government of President Francois Mitterrand against rioting in the French Pacific Ocean territory of New Caledonia.

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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.

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