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Paris riots spark meeting ban
11/11/2005 22:05 - (SA)
Paris - French police have used emergency powers to ban all public meetings likely to provoke a disturbance in Paris from Saturday until early on Sunday, officials said in a statement.
The ban, to run from 10:00 Saturday to 08:00 on Sunday, was brought in under state of emergency powers decreed by the government in response to two weeks of rioting in poor city suburbs around the country.
"Messages sent over the past few days by Internet and text message have called for gatherings and 'violent acts' in Paris on November 12," the capital's police force said in a statement announcing the ban.
"To enforce the ban, the police and gendarmes already deployed in the capital will be considerably reinforced, and reminded of their instructions to arrest trouble-makers," the statement said.
Offenders will be punishable by up to two months imprisonment and a 3 750-euro fine.
Impose
The state of emergency, announced on Wednesday and renewable after 12 days, permits the French authorities to impose curfews in certain areas, conduct searches for weapons without a warrant, ban public meetings, and issue house-arrest orders.
France has been rocked by two weeks of car-burnings, arson attacks and rioting carried out mostly by young Arab and black residents of poor high-rise estates, who complain of economic misery and racial discrimination.
Though the unrest has subsided this week, French police were mobilised for a possible flare-up as the country headed into a long holiday weekend.
Surveillance has been stepped up on suburban transport lines into Paris amid concerns that youths behind the suburban unrest were planning to disrupt Armistice Day commemorations earlier Friday.
Petrol sales in small quantities have also been banned in Paris to make it harder for rioters to manufacture Molotov cocktails.
However, national police director-general Michel Gaudin said the authorities were not aware of any specific threat to the capital.
- SAPA
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