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# French riots laws help curb violence

Financial Times

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By Martin Arnold in Paris
Updated: 8:41 a.m. ET Nov. 10, 2005

Dominique de Villepin's decision to declare a state of emergency seemed to be paying off on Thursday as rioting abated across France and the prime minister's response to the crisis met with broad public approval.

Nicolas Sarkozy, French interior minister, however, faced renewed criticism on Thursday for his hardline stance on foreigners, after he told parliament on Wednesday that if convicted of participating in the riots, they should be expelled, even if they held residence permits.

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Critics say that Mr Sarkozy's inflammatory position fails to appreciate that most of those involved are in fact French citizens.

Michel Gaudin, National police chief said there had been a "very sharp drop" in violence on the 14th night of disturbance, reporting that 482 were cars burnt out on Wednesday night down from 617 the night before.

Although critics continued to attack Mr de Villepin's use of a 1955 curfew law used to put down unrest during the Algerian war, the prime minister was buoyed by increased anger among voters against the disorder. He has also benefited from muted criticism from the opposition Socialist party, which is hamstrung by divisions over strategy and its recognition that both political parties are equally to blame for the social crisis exposed by the rioting.

Almost three-quarters of French people supported the prime minister's decision to resort to emergency powers to clamp down on rioters, according to a poll by CSA published in Le Parisien newspaper yesterday.

The poll was conducted a day after Mr de Villepin appeared on television to address the crisis. It found more than 80 per cent of people backed his two other main initiatives: extending apprenticeships to younger people and boosting local association funding.

The popular support for Mr de Villepin's response to the crisis seems to have boosted his image among French voters, while denting that of Mr Sarkozy, his interior minister and likely rival for the 2007 presidential elections.

For the first time, Mr de Villepin came out on top in a head-to-head comparison with Mr Sarkozy in an Ifop agency poll published in Paris Match on Wednesday. The prime minister was preferred by 52 per cent of French voters, against 44 per cent for Mr Sarkozy.

The interior minister angered many people in France's large Muslim community and was widely blamed by leftwing politicians for provoking the rioters by referring to them as "scum" and "riffraff".

Jérome Fourquet, political opinion director at Ifop, said Mr Sarkozy was still well ahead where it mattered most: among rightwing voters, about two-thirds of whom said they preferred him to Mr de Villepin.

Though curfews were imposed in only a few areas by Tuesday night, the rioting showed signs of calming down. The police said 617 vehicles were set on fire that night compared with 1,173 vehicles the previous night. Yesterday evening rioting again appeared to have decreased. "We're seeing a strong decrease in hostile acts," said Michel Gaudin, France's chief of police, who said 280 arrests were made on Tuesday. The Ile-de-France region around Paris was calmer, as were Toulouse, Bordeaux and Strasbourg.

Even if the violence dies down, political recriminations and debates are expected to intensify. Jack Lang, former Socialist culture minister, yesterday blamed the government for cutting spending on local associations and on subsidised jobs for young people in poor areas. "It is like a bad joke to see Mr de Villepin saying he is going to restore a part of the measures already destroyed by the right three years ago," Mr Lang said yesterday.

Mr de Villepin's plan to lower the age for apprenticeships to 14 from 16 for children failing at school came under fire from teachers. They said it would undermine the principle of compulsory education for all up to the age of 16, a pillar of French education policy.

"For the children who experience social relegation on a daily basis, it is a return to a method ... abandoned 30 years ago," said the teachers trades union. Others argued apprenticeships could offer better prospects for the more than 150,000 children leaving school every year without qualifications. The government aims to increase the number of apprenticeships from 362,000 to 500,000. Manuel Valls, Socialist mayor of Evry, a poor town south of Paris, said: "Apprenticeships are a real answer to the problems of hundreds of young people in the suburbs failing in school."

Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
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