Thousand cars torched in latest French riots(Paris/France burns, Live Thread Night #11)

PARIS (Reuters) - Gangs of youths torched 1,300 vehicles overnight in the 10th consecutive night of violence in Paris's poor suburbs and major French towns, despite the deployment of thousands of extra police.

Cars were burnt out in the historic centre of Paris for the first time on Saturday night. In the normally quiet Normandy town of Evreux, a shopping mall, 50 vehicles, a post office and two schools went up in flames.

Authorities have so far found no way beyond appeals and more police to address a problem with complex social, economic and racial causes.

Evreux mayor Jean-Louis Debre, a confidant of President Jacques Chirac and speaker of the lower house of parliament, told France Info radio:

"To those responsible for the violence, I want to say: Be serious ... If you want to live in a fairer, more fraternal society, this is not how to go about it."

The deaths 10 days ago of two youths apparently fleeing police ignited pent up frustrations among young men, many of them Muslims of North and black African origin, at racism, unemployment, their marginal place in French society and their treatment by the police.

"Many youths have never seen their parents work and couldn't hold down a job if they got one," said Claude Chevallier, manager of a burned-out carpet depot in the rundown Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois.

But authorities now say the rolling nightly riots are being organised via the Internet and mobile phones, and have pointed the finger at drug traffickers and Islamist militants.

Overnight, 1,295 vehicles were torched across France, the highest total so far, police said. An extra 2,300 officers have been drafted in.

Seven police helicopters buzzed over the Paris region through the night, filming disturbances and directing mobile squads to incidents. Overnight, police made 349 arrests.

The number of incidents in the Paris region was similar to the night before, but in the provinces it was up sharply.

The violence has tarnished France's image abroad, forcing Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to cancel a trip to Canada, while Russia and the United States have warned their citizens to avoid Paris's troubled suburbs.

Villepin has combined a call for an end to the riots with dialogue with community leaders, youngsters and local officials, and has promised an action plan for 750 tough neighbourhoods.

"I'll make proposals as early as this week," the weekly Journal du Dimanche quoted him as saying.

But it remained unclear what could stop the violence, though some opposition parties have suggested a symbolic measure -- the resignation of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Accused of stoking passions by calling troublemakers "scum", Sarkozy has ignored calls to quit. A survey published on Sunday indicated his public image was holding up, even if many disapproved of his strong language.

Villepin also has ambitions to be the right wing's presidential candidate in 2007 and has tried to position himself as a much more consensual figure than Sarkozy; the effect on the crisis on his ratings is still unclear.

With no end in sight to the nights of wailing sirens, acrid smoke, stone-throwing and destruction, residents from all ethnic backgrounds are tiring of the unrest.

"My kids can't sleep at night," said a mother named Samia in Aulnay-sous-Bois. "They hear explosions, they see fires and they think they're in a war. When the slightest thing happens, they get anxious and say 'Mama, what's going on?'"

That's what I find so ironic... The one "youth" speaking in regards to Sarkozy calling them "scum" said that the insult was as if he "declared war". They said they are "fighting so their friends' death would not be in vain". They are truly delusional... The ones rioting ARE scum - showing complete disrespect for their "own" - burning down the schools and businesses of their neighbors and families. Attacking women, senior citizens, firefighters, paramedics, and disabled people...

What's most scary is that they show the same sort of attitude as some of the "poor" in this country. Entitlement, self-righteousness, etc... No interest in personal responsibility.

From French News on shooting:

http://news.tf1.fr/news/france/0,,3260739,00.html

Babelfish translation:

Twenty-nine police officers wounded by shootings

Suburbs:Twenty-nine police officers wounded by shooting About thirty police officers were wounded Sunday evening in Grigny (the Essonne), including two seriously, by shootings of guns with shot. Fires of vehicles and attacks of public buildings had begun again as of Sunday afternoon in provinc

Whereas the groups of breakers seemed to avoid the contact with the police force during previous nights, of the confrontations violent one occurred Sunday evening in Grigny, in the Essonne. About thirty police officers were wounded by shootings guns with shot. Two CRS were more seriously reached, whereas 27 their colleagues were it more slightly. At the time of these clashes between police officers and young breakers, no arrest was announced. In the same department, incidents took place in the city of Tarterêts of Corbeil-Essonnes, around fifty of masked young people having in particular tried to project a vehicle on a bus of CRS located downwards of a road. A school was also burnt with Savigny-on-Barley. Also in Paris area, the principal treasury of Trap doors (Yvelines) was burnt. The traffic of the buses of the RATP was in addition disturbed Sunday evening in Parisian suburbs because of urban violences, particularly in the departments of Seine-Saint-Denis and the Top-of-Seine.

In province also, the number of announced incidents was increasing to the wire of the evening. Fires of vehicles were announced in Nantes. Several cars were burned in Rouen and Le Havre Sunday at the beginning of evening, whereas a car ram was launched against a police station of a "sensitive" district of the agglomeration rouennaise. In Toulouse, incidents also occurred in Mirail between a group of about thirty young people and police force which answered by shootings of teargas jets of various projectiles. A nursery school was burnt with Saint-Etienne and eight weight-heavy with Roanne.

Also in the afternoon of Sunday, a bus was set fire to by a group of young people in the suburbs of Saint-Etienne and two people were slightly wounded in the fire. Towards 16H30, a group is gotten into the bus on the level of the commune of Ricamarie (the Loire). They ordered to the passengers to go down and poured gasoline in the vehicle, which they ignited before all the passengers did not have time to leave, according to the police force and the Company of public transport of the agglomeration inhabitant of Saint-Etienne (STAS). The vehicle was completely destroyed by the flames. Its driver and momentary was taken charges some by the firemen because of light burns. The traffic of the buses was completely stopped in the agglomeration. In the night of Saturday to Sunday, confrontations between young people and the police force had already occurred in Saint-Etienne and a fifteen year old teenager had been challenged and placed in police custody. But then, the intervention of the families had brought back calms it.

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