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French riot damage hits new low Wed Nov 16, 2005 4:39 AM ET PARIS (Reuters) - Disturbances rocked French suburbs for the 20th straight night but police said on Wednesday the number of vehicles destroyed fell to a new low of 163 after lawmakers backed an extension of emergency powers. France has been hit by its worst civil unrest in almost 40 years as youths angry over racism and unemployment set fire to thousands of cars and attacked public buildings. Police said four times as many vehicles were destroyed overnight in provincial towns and cities than in the Paris region, where the violence erupted on October 27 after the accidental deaths of two youths electrocuted while apparently fleeing police. More than 5 vehicles were destroyed in 5 of the country's 36,000 communes or municipal districts, the Interior Ministry said. "Elsewhere, there was a sharp reduction in the number of fires, whose link with the urban violence remains unproven," the ministry added in its statement. The rioting has been blamed mostly on youths who feel excluded from mainstream society although Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday that 80 percent of those arrested for rioting were already known to police. On Tuesday, France's lower house of parliament backed a government request for a 3-month extension to emergency powers invoked by the conservative government last week to quell the wave of urban unrest. The Senate, or upper house, debates the law on Wednesday. Passage of the law seems certain because the ruling center-right party dominates the two chambers of parliament. The government approved emergency powers including curfews last week that went into force on November 9 for 12 days, although only a few areas have imposed curfews.
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