Car torched during riots
Photo: AFP
France riots: Chirac vows action
More than 30 policemen hurt, 800 vehicles burned in France’s poor suburbs; France’s largest Muslim organizations issued fatwa against unrest. Chirac: Republic quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear
More than 30 police were hurt and 800 vehicles burned in France’s poor suburbs as unrest spread and intensified for an 11th night despite a vow by President Jacques Chirac to defeat it.
In Grigny, south of Paris, youths lured police into a housing estate and attacked them with pellet guns. A police spokesman said about 10 were injured, two seriously with pellets in the neck and legs.
The police union Action Police CFTC urged the government on Monday to impose a curfew on the riot-hit areas and call in the army to control the youths, many of whom are French-born citizens of Arab or African origin complaining of racial discrimination.
“Nothing seems to be able to stop the civil war that spreads a bit more every day across the whole country,” it said in a statement. “The events we’re living through now are without precedent since the end of the Second World War.”
The head of France’s main business group, Laurence Parisot, warned of the consequences of the violence for the French economy, notably on tourism and investment.
“France’s image has been deeply damaged,” she told Europe 1 radio.
Reacting to official suggestions that Islamist terrorists might be orchestrating some of the protests, one of France’s largest Muslim organizations issued a fatwa against the unrest.
'They really shot at officers'
The violence came shortly after Chirac broke a long silence with his first public comments since the unrest began on Oct. 27.
“The republic is quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear,” he said after a domestic security council met to respond to the violence in which thousands of cars have gone up in flames so far.
An Interior Ministry statement said 839 more vehicles were torched overnight. Thirty-four police were injured in clashes and 186 rioters detained.
“They really shot at officers,” Said one officer after about 200 youths attacked his colleagues in Grigny. “This is real, serious violence. It’s not like the previous nights. I am very concerned because this is mounting.”
Opposition politicians criticized government policies towards difficult neighborhoods.
“The least we can say is that the government’s response has been confused and weak,” Jean-Marc Ayrault, head of the Socialist Party in the National Assembly, wrote in Le Figaro daily newspaper.
Lens: Firebomb thrown at church
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose tough line has been widely criticized but was apparently endorsed by Chirac’s call for order to be restored before any measures can be taken, visited the two injured policemen in hospital.
Further violence was reported in other cities, including Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg, Lens and Toulouse.
Youths seized a bus in Saint-Etienne in central France, ordering passengers off and torching the vehicle. The driver and one passenger were hurt. In the eastern city of Strasbourg, rioters lobbed Molotov cocktails into a primary school.
In Toulouse in the southeast, a blazing car was pushed into a metro entrance. At Lens in the north, a firebomb was thrown at a church. In nearby Lille, about 50 cars were torched and a Belgian television reporter was beaten up as he filmed.
The rioting began with the accidental electrocution of two youths fleeing police in Clichy-sous-Bois outside Paris.
Chirac’s government has come under increasing pressure to halt the riots, sparked by frustration among ethnic minorities over racism, unemployment and harsh treatment by police.
Many feel trapped in the drab suburbs, built in the 1960s and 1970s to house waves of immigrant workers. Their French-born children and grandchildren are now out on the streets demanding the equality France promised but, they say, failed to deliver.
Later on Monday, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is due to announce measures for France’s poor suburbs, where many immigrants from Africa live in bleak social housing projects.
“We cannot accept any ‘no-go’ areas,” Villepin said after meeting Chirac on Sunday, adding the government would step up security where necessary. Some 2,300 extra officers have already been drafted in to quell riots that have spread from Paris’s suburbs to other towns, unnerving France’s European neighbors.
