Posted on 11/03/2005 1:22:00 PM PST by Eurotwit
PARIS (AFP) - French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin vowed his government "will not give in" to rioters, even as police braced for an eighth night of violence on the outskirts of Paris.
"I will not allow organised gangs to make the law in the suburbs," he declared in parliament.
More than 1,300 police were deployed to again do battle with groups of stone- and bottle-throwing youths that have torched hundreds of vehicles and vandalised buildings in rampages in low-income, high-immigrant districts since last week.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose hardline law-and-order policies have been blamed for fanning the acts of defiance, said 143 people have so far been arrested in the clashes. More than two dozen police have been hurt.
In a serious sign of an escalation, four shots were fired at officers overnight Wednesday, though none struck their targets. A total of 315 vehicles were set fire to during the night, and a police station was ransacked.
The riots were sparked a week ago by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who had hidden in an electrical sub-station to escape a police identity check in the suburb at the epicentre of the troubles, Clichy-sous-Bois.
Since then, they have spread, first to neighbouring suburbs and finally to every compass point around the French capital.
In many cases, the gangs of youths avoided direct confrontation with police, preferring to run away after setting cars or property on fire.
Often, though, police and firemen were targeted by thrown objects, ranging from stones to bottles filled with petrol. One fireman suffered second-degree burns to his face from a Molotov cocktail.
Sarkozy said the street violence that occurred in the most restive area, the northeastern region of Seine-Saint-Denis, overnight Wednesday "was not spontaneous, it was perfectly organized -- we are looking into by whom and how."
The interior minister, who harbours presidential ambitions, last month promised to wage a "war without mercy" on youth crime.
Some of the youths taking part in the troubles have responded by pledging to continue the "war" against the police "until Sarkozy resigns."
Villepin -- who cancelled a trip to Canada to tackle the crisis -- called the violence "unacceptable" and said restoring order was the government's "absolute top priority."
President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for calm, warning that an escalation would be "dangerous".
For sociologists and many commentators in France, the riots have laid bare the failure of successive government's policies in addressing the grim existence of those living in run-down public housing estates, some of them little more than ghettos where crime and gangs run rampant.
The country has 751 neighbourhoods officially classed as severely disadvantaged, housing a total of five million people, around eight percent of the population.
Conditions are often dire with high-rise housing, unemployment at twice the national rate of 10 percent and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.
Many of France's estimated five million Muslims live in those suburbs, and authorities were left wondering whether the end overnight Thursday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan would bring more or less violence.
I guess this means they're seeking a new french word to replace "surrender". Acquiese perpaps?
Things ought to be heating up right about now...
Lock and Load, Froggies. Lock and Load.
Ya, promises promises.
Just throw some over-ripe Camemberts at them. They'll surrender in tears.
One thing's for sure. If they do manage to subdue all these freedom fighters, they will need Halliburton to help them rebuild.
Maybe they can just give up the suburbs and have a free "Vichy" France like last time.
Don't be so quick to judge. The French have a pretty good track record against un-armed mobs, recently. Look at the business down in Africa last year; the Ivory Coast was it?
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We're Know We're Dead Wrong.")
"In many cases, the gangs of youths avoided direct confrontation with police, preferring to run away after setting cars or property on fire."
Definitely Muslim.
Hey froggies how come you can't give peace a chance, what is with all the meanness on the part of the police...what about kumbayah...why can't you just sing that at the rioters? Where have the flowers gone? The answer is blowing in the wind?
Parts of Paris look like the Gaza Strip right now. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise and will give French authorities the excuse they need to take out the trash.
"I will not allow organised gangs to make the law in the suburbs," he declared in parliament.
Sorry, but they have been making their own law for many years now.
They have a history in that area.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We're Know We're Dead Wrong.")
-- Francois la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
The sound like our liberal, jerk-weed, moonbat, democrats!
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