'Riots, polygamy not linked'
2005-12-04 21:41
Bamako - French President Jacques Chirac has ruled out any connection between polygamy and recent rioting in French suburbs with large populations of immigrant origin, arguing that multiple marriage was banned in France.
His comments on Sunday to reporters at the close of a two-day Franco-African summit followed a report that France's employment minister Gerard Larcher blamed polygamy for being one possible reason for the violence.
Chirac said: "There is no connection between the crisis we have seen recently in France and polygamy.
"There is a problem linked to migration, to living conditions in a certain number of places in France, which do not give young people sufficient chances."
France was trying to respond to the issues, he said.
Larcher blamed polygamy as one possible reason for the rioting, saying multiple marriages among immigrants were one cause of the racial discrimination faced by the country's ethnic minority population in the job market, according a report earlier this month.
France had nearly three weeks of unrest in outlying suburbs, prompted by the accidental deaths of two teenagers in an electricity sub-station while hiding from police in a northern section of Paris.