Unrest spreads in Paris

2005-11-02 08:24

Paris - Gangs of youths in towns around Paris clashed with police and torched cars and trash cans overnight as violence that has plagued one poor suburb for almost a week spread around the French capital, police and local authorities said on Wednesday.

The epicentre of the trouble, which first erupted last Thursday following the deaths of two teenagers, is the poor northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois in the Seine-Saint-Denis department.

Police sources reported about 60 vehicles torched throughout the Seine-Saint-Denis area overnight.

In the towns of Aulnay-sous-Bois and Sevran, gangs of stone-throwing youths were met by police firing disabling rubber 'flash-balls' to disperse them.

Spread to other parts in Paris

"It's a rough night," a departmental spokesperson said.

There was less trouble overnight in Clichy-sous-Bois itself - which has a large immigrant and Muslim population - partly due to the heavy police presence there.

But more worryingly for the security forces, there were pockets of similar trouble for the first time in several other departments ringing Paris.

Cars were torched and police reported sporadic incidents involving groups of youths in Val-d'Oise to the north of the capital and Seine-et-Marne to the southeast with lesser violence reported in Yvelines to the west.

French government leaders came under fire on Tuesday for their handling of the unrest.

The main opposition Socialists accused President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin of an "inexcusable" silence over the violence.

But most of their anger was directed toward Nicolas Sarkozy, the ambitious interior minister and would-be president, whose tough rhetoric on urban crime has aroused charges of pandering to the far right.

"When an interior minister doesn't hesitate to use insulting terms, branding as 'rabble' communities which have the misfortune to be fragile and wanting to turn water-cannon on them, it is the image of the country that is tarnished," the Socialist Party said in a statement.

The violence in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of Paris, erupted after two youths, aged 15 and 19, were electrocuted after scaling the wall of a relay station and touching a transformer.

The local public prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the boys thought they were being chased by police, but authorities denied that was the case.

Suburbs auch as Clichy-sous-Bois suffer from unemployment rates over twice the national average, which is already relatively high at around 10%.

Calm was restored by around 01:30 after police had made 10 arrests.

- AFP