Riots spread to 300 towns

2005-11-07 16:33

Paris - Rioting by French youths spread to 300 towns overnight and a man hurt in the violence died of his wounds, the first fatality in 11 days of unrest that has shocked the country, police said on Monday.

As urban unrest spread to neighbouring Belgium and possibly Germany, the French government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm.

On Sunday night, vandals burned more than 1 400 vehicles, and clashes around the country left 36 police injured, setting a new high for overnight arson and violence since rioting started October 27, Michel Gaudin told a news conference.

Australia, Austria, Britain, Germany and Hungary advised their citizens to exercise care in France, joining the United States and Russia in warning tourists to stay away from violence-hit areas.

Alain Rahmouni, a national police spokesperson, said the man who was beaten died at a hospital from injuries sustained in the attack, but he had no immediate details of the victim's age or his attacker.

The man was caught by surprise by an attacker after rushing out of his apartment building to put out a trash can fire, Rahmouni said.

Apparent copycat attacks spread outside France for the first time, with five cars torched outside Brussels' main train station, police in the Belgian capital said.

The mayhem started as an outburst of anger in suburban Paris housing projects and has fanned out nationwide among disaffected youths, mostly of Muslim or African origin, to become France's worst civil unrest in over a decade.

Attacks overnight Sunday to Monday were reported in 274 towns, and police made 395 arrests, Gaudin said.

"This spread, with a sort of shock wave spreading across the country, shows up in the number of towns affected," Gaudin said, noting that the violence appeared to be sliding away from its flash point in the Parisian suburbs and worsening elsewhere.

It was the first time police had been injured by weapons' fire and there were signs that rioters were deliberately seeking out clashes with police, officials said.

All told, 4 700 cars have been set alight in France since the rioting began and 1 200 suspects were detained at least temporarily, Gaudin said.

The growing violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs.

Many Africans and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair.

This is fertile terrain for crime of all sorts as well as for Muslim extremists offering frustrated youths a way out.

France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organisation, the Union for Islamic Organisations of France, issued a fatwa, or religious decree.

It forbade all those "who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others".

- AP