New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
More cops sent - chaos turns deadly BY MARY PAPENFUSS SPECIAL TO THE NEWS Tuesday, November 8th, 2005 PARIS - The French government laid down a curfew and sent in police reinforcements as escalating rioting spread nationwide - and began to infect Belgium and Germany. A 12th night of violence saw Muslim youths set fires in nearly 300 cities and towns. The unrest in France claimed its first life: A 61-year-old retired autoworker, who was beaten into a coma last week as he tried to douse a car fire, died of his injuries. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called the violence "unacceptable" and vowed to get things under control, even as hooded rioters torched a bus in the southern city of Toulouse. And while he called the rioters "delinquents," he also said young people in the country "must be given hope." But others were less conciliatory: France's hard-line interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who plans to run for president, has called the rioters "scum," and archconservative political leader Jean-Marie Le Pen declared the violence the "start of a civil war." Thirty-six cops were hurt in the latest clashes, including two seriously wounded in Grigny, south of Paris. Meanwhile, a handful of cars were set alight in riots in Brussels and Berlin, suggesting copycat attacks may spread. Hundreds of cars, schools, churches, businesses and police stations have been torched in riots in France from southern Nice to the heart of Paris. It's the nation's worst violence in 37 years. Michel Thooris, an officer of the union Police Action, said the besieged cops need help. "We propose that the army move in to support us," he told the Daily News. De Villepin ruled out army intervention for the moment, but said he would deploy an extra 1,500 police reservists. It was only a matter of time before France's 5 million predominantly Muslim minorities erupted, said international relations expert Steven Weber of the University of California/Berkeley. He compared their ghettoized French communities to the "worst of the South Bronx in the '70s." "I don't think this is about Islam. It's a minority issue," agreed political science Prof. Paul Godt of the American University of Paris. "These people wanted to be part of French society - and they're not. That's what they're so angry about." Violence first erupted Oct. 27 when two young men of North African descent were accidentally electrocuted in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois while hiding from cops in a power station. With News Wire Services