French riots defy crackdown

2005-11-05 20:50

Paris - French authorities on Saturday stepped up police action against youths responsible for more than a week of urban riots as suspicions grew that the gangs were becoming increasingly organised.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called a meeting of police chiefs to discuss tactics as they braced for another night of violence that has so far defied all efforts to stamp it out.

In a sign of the government's resolve, police said more than 250 people were arrested during Friday night alone - doubling at once the number of detentions recorded since the troubles first erupted on October 27.

Nearly 900 vehicles were torched that same night, making it the worst in terms of the arson attacks that have come to characterise the rampages.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin held a crisis meeting with Sarkozy and other key ministers on Saturday, as the rioting dominated world headlines and prompted the United States and Russia to warn its citizens against travelling through Paris suburbs.

Officials were "unanimous in their firmness" in seeking an end to the violence, Sarkozy said after the meeting.

"The violence is not acceptable," he told journalists.

While the government acknowledged that the grim conditions in the suburbs - chronic high unemployment, racial discrimination, miserable housing, drugs - had much to do with the discontent, Sarkozy and other security officials also voiced suspicions that the unrest was being organised.

Paris prosecutor general Yves Bot told Europe 1 radio on Saturday there was "organised violence", but did not say by whom.

Violence has also flared in other cities...

"If I could give an exact answer, those people would already be under arrest," he said. "But we can see organised actions, a strategy."

Youths have been seen relaying police movements by cellphone, and have started internet weblogs urging other parts of France to join the unrest.

While deprived suburbs with large immigrant Arab and African populations on the fringes of Paris were again the scene of the worst of the riots, violence has also flared in other cities around the country - Lille, Rouen, Rennes, Toulouse, Marseille - over the past two nights.

The prospect of co-ordinated actions is of special concern in France, given that the areas most affected by the violence are downtrodden suburbs with high concentrations of Muslims, some of whom have been influenced by radical forms of Islam.

The country is home to Europe's biggest Muslim community, estimated at more than five million, or nearly 10% of the population.

So far, though, there has been no religious dimension given to the riots. Those taking part have spoken more of protesting the misery of their lives in the fringe towns, where unemployment of over 20% is the norm.

The violence began last week when two teenagers, of African and Arab origins, were electrocuted while hiding in an electrical sub-station after fleeing a police identity check.

Since then, there has been evidence it has been fanned by tough rhetoric by Sarkozy, who has been preparing a bid to run in 2007 presidential elections on the strength of "zero tolerance" law-and-order policies.

- AFP