Posted on 11/04/2005 12:32:54 AM PST by Southack
PARIS RIOTS SPREADING 4.11.2005. 18:34:50
Rioting around Paris has worsened with gangs attacking police and firefighters in defiance of a government vow to crackdown on the violence, which has plagued the capital for over a week.
Fresh rioting broke out on the outskirts of Paris — in the city's poorest and mainly immigrant suburbs — for the eighth straight night on Thursday.
Around 1,300 police officers were mobilised in the north-eastern suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, while more than 30 people were arrested in the area.
Buses, fire engines and police were stoned and five policemen were reported injured.
Police said more than 160 cars were torched overnight in the Paris region and 33 in the provinces, a day after around 315 vehicles were burnt in the city’s Ile-de-France region.
One of the worst incidents took place at Neuilly-sur-Marne where police vans came under fire from pellet pistols, but nobody was reported hurt.
A fire was started in a primary school in Stains, as police were targeted by a group of 30 to 40 people near a synagogue.
Paris firemen were called to fight a blaze at a carpet warehouse in Aulnay-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Traffic was halted on a suburban commuter line which links Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport after stone-throwing rioters attacked two trains.
The clashes have gained territory every night since they began last Thursday, exposing what critics say is a failure of the government to address the problems of low-income, high-immigration suburbs where crime and gangs run rampant.
In a worrying sign similar rampages broke out elsewhere in France.
Police said several cars in the eastern city of Dijon were set alight, while similar attacks took place in the western Seine-Maritime region and the Bouches-du-Rhone in the south of the country.
Government defiant
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who cancelled a trip to Canada to tackle the crisis, said the violence was "unacceptable".
He vowed that authorities would not give in to the violence and would make restoring order their "absolute top priority".
"I will not allow organised gangs to make the law in the suburbs," he said.
President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for calm, warning that an escalation would be "dangerous".
The riots were sparked last week by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who had hidden in an electrical sub-station to escape a police identity check in Clichy-sous-Bois.
A preliminary report released by the interior ministry on Thursday appeared to exonerate police of any direct role in the teenagers' deaths.
But as the unrest continued the opposition Socialist Party and many in the suburbs themselves blamed the hardline policies of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy for fanning the violence.
Mr Sarkozy, who on Thursday said the total number of people arrested was over 140, vowed a "war without mercy" on crime and rebellious youths in the suburbs just before the rampages erupted.
The conservative minister, who has ambitions of running for president in two years, has drawn criticism for his tough rhetoric, especially for referring to delinquents as "rabble".
On Thursday, he claimed that recent rioting "was not spontaneous, it was perfectly organised — we are looking into by whom and how."
Low income suburbs
France has 751 neighbourhoods officially classed as severely disadvantaged, housing a total of five million people, around eight percent of the population.
The recent violence has exposed simmering discontent in those suburbs where African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children are trapped by poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, crime and poor education and housing.
Unemployment is these areas is often twice the national rate of 10 percent, and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.
Thursday night was the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a night traditionally marked by feasts and family get-togethers.
And you sir, should know that there is a sale at starbucks.
-go buy a pound so that you can wake up and...
you know the rest.
Hm. Well, have a nice little snit.
THAT is an awesome reply. I love that movie.
Wow! Paris is burning...(yawn)...what's for dinner?
They will soon get bored of rioting. Terrorist attacks will be next on the table in France. Give it time.
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This looks much worse than terrorist attacks. Rioting like this indicates larger numbers, popular uprising, revolution, organization, and power and control. Fanatical religion of death knows no allegiance to nationality. Europe is rapidly losing its culture and authority to Muslim youth gangs urged on by jihad against western decadence
Yep, those rotten to the core Christians ramming their ideology down our throats, can't have that can we. You don't suppose there will be a revival of sorts when the fan is finished depositing what is sure obvious to the rest of us. If it smells like manure, it must be manure.
Looks to me like 1968.
demonstrations of commies in Europe started in paris. Instead of beating them, it caused France and other Euro to go even more lib.
France alongside England and Sweeden are pro-muslim countries.
Lets say that their politics on Bosnia and Kosov where they support anti-christ(ians)won`t change.
abc news radio announced the riots in france being started by out of work african-americans...
yes they did, really really.
ugh.
teeman
This is gonna get real interesting...
imo
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