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Note: The following text is an exact quote:
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http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2005/10/008786print.html

ctober 31, 2005

Fourth night of riots in Paris

"A police union spokesman says a Paris suburb is seeing 'civil war.'" More on the Muslim riots in Paris from Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

BOBIGNY, France (Reuters) -- Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday defended his tough crime policies against claims they helped increase tension after a fourth night of rioting in a Paris suburb in which tear gas was fired into a mosque.
It was not clear who had fired the tear gas and Sarkozy, addressing police officers, vowed to find out what had happened.

Youths hurled rocks and set fire to cars in the northeastern Clichy-sous-Bois suburb of the French capital, where many immigrants and poor families live in high-rise housing estates notorious for youth violence.

French television said six police officers were hurt and 11 people arrested in violence partly fueled by the incident at the mosque.

"I am, of course, available to the Imam of the Clichy mosque to let him have all the details in order to understand how and why a tear gas bomb was sent into this mosque," Sarkozy told about 170 police officers at the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture in Bobigny, the local authority which oversees Clichy-sous-Bois.

He also met the president of the Muslim community for the Clichy area.

The violence began four days ago among residents of Clichy-sous-Bois over the deaths of two teenagers believed to be of African origin who were electrocuted while fleeing police.

Posted at October 31, 2005 11:52 AM

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1513110/posts

Fifth night of unrest in Paris suburb
Sify ^ | Nov. 1, 2005 | AFP

Posted on 10/31/2005 9:59:08 PM PST by FairOpinion

Clichy-sous-Bois (France): Police fired tear gas canisters and rioters hurled Molotov cocktails as violence hit a poor Paris suburb for the fifth straight night in unrest that officials said on Tuesday had also spread to neighbouring towns.

The local prefecture said that the levels of violence in the troubled suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois were lower than on previous nights.

However, 12 people were arrested in the town, which has a large Muslim community, during a night in which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a police station and 11 cars and trashcans were torched.

Tensions have been running high between police and gangs of youths in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of Paris, since the accidental death by electrocution last Thursday of two teenagers.

Many of the youths targeting police were angry at the deaths of two youths, aged 15 and 19, who were electrocuted after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer.

The local public prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the boys thought police was chasing them, but authorities denied that was the case.

The launching of a tear gas grenade at a mosque late on Sunday threatened to further escalate the troubles.

Police fired more tear gas overnight on Monday to disperse around 100 youths involved in a standoff with some 50 officers near the mosque.

In another worrying development, Monday night was the first time that the unrest was reported to have spread to neighbouring areas of the Seine-Saint-Denis region abutting Paris.

Just after midnight in nearby Montfermeil, the municipal police garage was set ablaze and two cars destroyed, a prefecture spokesman said.

Elsewhere in the towns of Sevran and Aulnay-sous-Bois police were subjected to "stone-throwing" gangs but there were no injuries, according to the local prefecture. Small fires were also lit in the towns.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy—who has implemented hard-line urban security policies in his bid to be a conservative candidate in France's 2007 presidential elections—visited the administrative headquarters responsible for the suburb.

Sarkozy, who is also leader of France's ruling UMP party, vowed to wage a "war without mercy" on crime in the Paris suburbs just a week before the rampages.

The minister said Clichy-sous-Bois and the surrounding area would be the first to try out his latest initiative: cameras on police patrol cars to capture suspects' actions.

Asked about the tear gas grenade at the mosque, he admitted that it was of the type used by anti-riot police, but cautioned "that does not mean that it was fired by a police officer."

The families of the two boys killed snubbed Sarkozy's invitation to meet with them, and called the tear gas incident "disrespectful".

"We are asking for calm, we are asking for justice and we are asking for the riot police to leave," Siyakah Traore, brother of one of the victims, told a press conference at the mosque.

Among those detained since Thursday were four minors, who were to be brought before a children's court judge on Tuesday.

Another magistrate on Monday ordered three young men to jail for two months.