 |
|
|
|
|
| Race riots spread in Paris | |
| Published: 3 November 2005 PARIS: The French government was reeling yesterday after nearly a week of suburban rioting outside Paris spread to other areas around the capital, laying bare what observers said was the country's failure to address deep problems of poverty and immigration.Gangs of stone-throwing youths clashed with police and torched 180 cars overnight in several towns north and west of Paris in an escalation of dusk-to-dawn violence that has raged since last Thursday following the death of two teenagers in the northeast suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. Thirty-four people were arrested in the rampages, which have so shaken authorities that President Jacques Chirac came forward to call for calm and vow to investigate the teens' deaths. "Tempers must calm down," a spokesman quoted him as telling his cabinet. Chirac warned that "an escalation of disrespectful behaviour would lead to a dangerous situation" and asserted that "there can be no area existing outside the law" in France. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin put off indefinitely a trip to Canada originally scheduled for yesterday to call an emergency meeting of ministers to discuss the problem and attend a parliamentary session in which he called the violence "extremely serious". He told ministers that "the government will ensure public order and will do so with the necessary firmness." He said he was counting on Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy - who cancelled a trip next week to Pakistan and Afghanistan to deal with the situation - to "take the necessary measures." In all, more than 80 people have been arrested and two dozen police hurt since the start of the riots last week. They were triggered by the accidental electrocution of two youths, aged 15 and 17, who had scaled an electrical relay station's walls to escape a police identity check in the street. Since then, tensions - punctuated by the nighttime confrontations - have increased in the low-rent, high-immigrant suburbs that surround Paris. The firing of a police teargas grenade against a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois during clashes late Sunday also sparked rage in the suburb's large Muslim community. The grievances have been further fuelled by Sarkozy's hardline law-and-order policies. Observers saw the riots as a sign of the growing divisions in French society - Muslim immigration, poverty, declining education standards in downtrodden areas and joblessness. |
|
|
© Gulf Daily News |
|
