Violence waning in France
2005-11-10 14:10
Paris - The violence that has wracked France's city suburbs for two weeks showed clear signs of being on the wane on Thursday, as police reported another decrease in the number of overnight incidents.
According to national police chief Michel Gaudin, there were 482 cars burned across the country and 203 people arrested, compared to 617 cars torched and 330 arrests the night before. This was a "significant decline", he said.
The fall was especially marked in the Paris region, where the riots began on October 27 but which saw only 95 cars burned overnight. The provinces now seem to be the prime focus of the unrest.
At the peak of the trouble on Sunday night about 1 400 vehicles were burned 395 people arrested across the country.
The easing-off of the unrest came after the government decreed a state of emergency and enforced overight curfews.
France's image tainted
In the worst outbreak of urban violence since May 1968, France has been struggling to contain a surge of car-burnings, arson attacks and rioting carried out in the main by young Arab and black residents of the country's poor out-of-town estates.
Thousands of vehicles have been destroyed, schools and other public buildings wrecked, dozens of police officers injured, one civilian killed and more than 2 000 people arrested.
Immense damage has been done to France's image, as the failures of its vaunted model of integration - based on the unfulfilled theory of colour-blind equality - have been cruelly exposed.
On Tuesday the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin outlined a twin-track initiative to defuse the unrest - invoking a 50-year-old law that authorises curfews and house-to-house searches and at the same unveiling a classic package of social assistance to help the stricken areas.
Most regional governors - or prefects - chose not to use their new emergency powers to order curfews overnight on Wednesday, sensing that the violence was already on the decline and the new measure could be interpreted as a provocation.
Sarkozy sparks fury
Isolated outbreaks of violence were reported during the night at Lyon - where there was a two-hour power cut for many residents because of an act of sabotage - Toulouse, Lille, Belfort and Saint-Quentin.
Sarkozy - who is already the number one hate-figure of the young rioters - caused further fury among his political opponents when he spoke out in favour of expulsions for foreigners convicted of violence, even those bearing residence permits.
"If someone has the honour of carrying a residence permit, the least one can say is that he shouldn't get himself arrested for provoking urban violence," the minister said. About 120 of those detained are believed to bear foreign nationality.
An opinion poll on Wednesday showed that 73% of the population support the government's decision to authorise night-time curfews, while only 13% say they understand or have sympathy with the rioters.