Six days of rioting and NOW he's going to get tough???
Geez!
After 6 days, it's no longer a riot, INO. It's an insurrection.
Staff and agencies
Wednesday November 2, 2005
The Guardian (UK)
Violent clashes between police and immigrant groups in the suburbs around Paris have continued for the sixth consecutive night with scores of cars set alight and nearly three dozen people arrested overnight, officials said today.
Police in riot gear fired rubber bullets at advancing gangs of youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois - one of the worst-hit suburbs - where 15 cars were burned. Youths lobbed molotov cocktails at an annex to the town hall and threw stones at the fire station, despite appeals for calm yesterday from the French prime minister, Dominique de Villlepin.
Four people were arrested for throwing stones at police in nearby Bondy where 14 cars were burned, the prefecture said. A fire engulfed a carpet store, but it was not immediately clear whether the blaze was linked to the suburban unrest.
Officials gave an initial count of 69 vehicles destroyed in nine suburbs across the Seine-Saint-Denis region to the north and north-east of Paris. The area, which is home mainly to families of immigrant origin, most from Muslim north Africa, is marked by soaring unemployment and social unrest.
The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, told Europe-1 radio that police detained 34 people overnight. Mr Sarkozy - blamed by many for fanning the violence with uncompromising language and harsh tactics - defended his approach and vowed to restore peace.
The rioting began on Thursday after two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, were fatally electrocuted and a third injured in a power substation. There have been claims, denied by officials, that they where were hiding to escape from police.
Mr Sarkozy caused uproar by calling the rioters "scum" and continued to defend his stance in an interview in today's Le Parisien newspaper in which he said the current policy dealing with poor immigrant communities had failed.
"The reigning order is too often the order of gangs, drugs, traffickers. The neighbourhoods are waiting for firmness but also justice.... and jobs," he told the paper.
An Associated Press news team witnessed confrontations between about 20 police and 40 youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Officials said that "small, very mobile gangs" were harassing police as well as setting fire to rubbish bins and vehicles throughout the region.
France-Info radio said some 150 fires were reported in rubbish containers, cars and buildings across Seine-Saint-Denis.
Yesterday, Mr de Villepin met the parents of the three teenagers, promising a full investigation of the deaths and insisting on "the need to restore calm", the prime minister's office said.
Despite that, tension continued to mount after young men torched cars, garbage bins and even a primary school the night before. Scores of cars were reported burned on Monday night in Clichy-sous-Bois, and 13 people were detained.
Youths set two rooms of a primary school in Sevran on fire on Monday along with several cars, the mayor, Stephane Gatignon, said in a statement.
Mr Sarkozy's handling of the situation has been criticised within the conservative government. The equal opportunities minister, Azouz Begag, said he "contests this method of becoming submerged by imprecise, warlike semantics".
For three decades, successive governments have injected funds and launched projects but failed to improve the lives of many marginalised communities in suburban areas.
Ol' Jacques must have attended the same governance classes as Kathleen Blanco...