French riots: 126 cops hurt

2005-11-16 12:29

Paris - France's national police service said on Wednesday that 126 officers had been injured since urban unrest first flared up nearly three weeks ago.

It said a total of 2 888 people had been arrested since the violence started on October 27, and 8 973 vehicles had been destroyed by arson.

Tuesday night showed another decline in the level of the violence, with 163 vehicles being torched and 50 people arrested across the country - effectively down to pre-riot levels.

The police service said 27 vehicles had been destroyed in Paris and 136 elsewhere in France.

It said: "We're also seeing a scattering of these fires, whose links with the urban violence hasn't been proved."

Those figures were well down on the 1 408 vehicles burnt at the height of the rioting on November 6.

In all, 11 200 police had been deployed to rein in the unrest, backed up, in a few cases, by curfews on minors.

Overnight Tuesday saw just one officer injured, during the arrest of a group of people throwing bottles of acid.

- AFP