from news.com.au

French vow no riot surrender
From: AAP From correspondents in Paris
November 04, 2005

FRENCH Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has 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 1300 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, 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.

Mr Sarkozy said the street violence that occurred in the most restive
area, the northeastern region of Seine-Saint-Denis, "was not
spontaneous, it was perfectly organised - 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."

Mr 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 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 of the Islamic holy
month of Ramadan would bring more or less violence.

from news.com.au

French vow no riot surrender
From: AAP From correspondents in Paris
November 04, 2005

FRENCH Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has 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 1300 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, 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.

Mr Sarkozy said the street violence that occurred in the most restive
area, the northeastern region of Seine-Saint-Denis, "was not
spontaneous, it was perfectly organised - 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."

Mr 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 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 of the Islamic holy
month of Ramadan would bring more or less violence.