Posted on 11/06/2005 1:21:11 PM PST by JustaCowgirl
By Elizabeth Pineau and Sophie Louet
PARIS (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac on Sunday vowed to restore order in France after riots in Paris spread across the country and began to unnerve his European neighbours.
"The Republic is quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear," Chirac said after a special domestic security council met to respond to the latest violence in which 1,300 vehicles went up in flames.
"The law must have the last word," Chirac said in his first public comments since the riots started in the poor suburbs, noting the importance of the respect of all, the law and the equality of chances.
Signs of a fresh wave of violence emerged on Sunday evening when youths seized a bus in Saint-Etienne, in southern France, ordering passengers to get off and then torching the vehicle.
The driver and one passenger were hurt, officials said.
In Rouen, in the north, rioters pushed a burning car against a police building. No-one was hurt, police said. Cars were also burnt in the cities of Nantes, Rennes and Orleans, media said.
Chirac's government is struggling to cope with an explosion of unrest with complex social, economic and racial causes.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the government would step up security wherever necessary. Some 2,300 extra officers have already been drafted in.
"We cannot accept any 'no-go' areas," Villepin said after meeting Chirac, adding he would announce his plans for the country's underprivileged suburbs on national television on Monday.
Rioting began 10 days ago with the accidental electrocution of two youths apparently fleeing police. Their deaths ignited frustration among ethnic minorities over racism, unemployment, police treatment and their marginal place in French society.
"This is too much, stop!" sobbed a woman in Evreux, a normally quiet town in rural Normandy where a shopping mall, 50 vehicles, a post office and two schools were destroyed.
"FRANCE IS NOT BURNING"
Across France, 1,300 vehicles went up in flames overnight. For the first time, more than 30 were destroyed inside the city walls of Paris. Previously quiet towns such as Dreux, to the west, and the city of Nantes were also affected.
Police said 349 people had been arrested, including six youths caught stockpiling 90 Molotov cocktails in a disused police building south of Paris.
Despite the worst destruction since the riots started, a police spokesman called for a sense of proportion: "It's 211 districts out of 36,000, so France is not burning."
Authorities say drug traffickers and Islamist militants are helping to organise the unrest, via the Internet and mobile phones, among the North and sub-Saharan African immigrant communities who make up a significant part of many suburban housing estates.
The violence has tarnished France's image abroad, forcing Villepin to cancel a trip to Canada, while Russia and the United States have warned their citizens to avoid troubled suburbs.
Neighbouring Germany, too, has a large immigrant population, including over 3 million Muslims -- most of Turkish origin.
Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of the conservative Christian Democrats in parliament, said Germany should be under no illusion that similar events could happen there too.
In Italy, opposition leader Romano Prodi called on the government to take urgent action, telling reporters:
"We have the worst suburbs in Europe. I don't think things are so different from Paris. It's only a question of time."
Jean-Marie Huet, a senior Justice Ministry official, said 160 people had been brought before the courts since the unrest started. Around 20 had been jailed, 30 others released on bail, and 50 minors had been brought before juvenile courts.
French Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said the riots were a failure of government policy and leadership. Communist and Green Party officials demanded Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to run for president in 2007, resign over remarks opponents say stoked the violence.
(Additional reporting by Brian Rohan, Astrid Wendlandt, Kerstin Gehmlich and Jon Boyle in Paris, Paul Carrel in Evreux)
Frankly, if I were a rioter, I would be made even more angry and enboldened by the fact that the president only cares enough to make a public comment once the main French city itself sees violence.
It would make me madder than when the riots began. Expect things to get even worse tonight.
Only in this way will he make sense of his philosophy of reasoning with a wave or rioteers that care not what he says. and continue to escalate arson and violence. Only then will the people of France realize just what a fool they have elected into power.
Q U A G M I R E !
"Police said copycat attacks are fanning the unrest but had no evidence of separate gangs coordinating. Officials said older youths, many already with police records, appear to be teaching younger teens arson techniques.
Unrest extended west to Normandy and south to Nice and Cannes on the Mediterranean coast, with attacks in or around the cities of Lyon, Lille, Marseille, Strasbourg. In all, 3,300 buses, cars and other vehicles have been incinerated in 10 nights, the police spokesman said.
In Evreux, 60 miles west of Paris, five police officers and three firefighters were injured in clashes with youths who destroyed at least 50 vehicles, shops and businesses, a post office and two schools, authorities said.
"Rioters attacked us with baseball bats," said Philippe Jofres, a deputy fire chief, told France-2 television (search). "We were attacked with pickaxes. It was war."
The rioting erupted Oct. 27 after two teenagers of north African descent were accidentally electrocuted as they hid in a power substation, apparently believing police were chasing them. Anger was then fanned anew days ago when a tear gas bomb exploded in a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois — the northern suburb where the youths died.
***
BUT...Chirac's police spokesman insists
"It's 211 districts out of 36,000, so France is not burning." How comforting1
Uh Ivan, I don't think they have an army...hahahahhaa.. :)
http://www.freerepublic.com/~sabine/index?U=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freerepublic.com%2Ffocus%2Ff-news%2F1516875%2Fposts
Sabine is here...don't think she's posted in a while, though.
Got it. So if you're a muslim, it's OK to ransack your neighborhood and set things on fire because a politician said something to tick you off.
You don't expect that journalists would actually understand the construction of an English sentence more complex than "See Spot Run", do you?
Well, it's just unhappy "immigrants" so it's not a problem. Just like the old fols dropping like flies in the 80 degree "heat wave" weren't a problem.
Please, please, mah friends, you must all calm down immediately, s'il vous plait. La Belle France is not burning. Only 211 districts are burning, n'est pas, madames et monsieurs? Eet ees not to worry.
http://news.tf1.fr/news/france/0,,3260739,00.html
29 French police injured by shotgun fire (above link in French)
French Socialist Party leader Francois Hollande said the riots were a failure of government policy and leadership. Communist and Green Party officials demanded Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to run for president in 2007, resign over remarks opponents say stoked the violence.
The socialists offer their standard excuse: Socialism would work if only WE were in charge of it. The communists want Sarkozy out of power because they know the majority of French citizens want an end to socialism, like Sarkozy does.
Chirac is a idiot and France is a scrub country, by defintion.
The French people will soon be a "dhimmi"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi
With a "whiff of grape-shot".
Cycle of violence keeps getting worse.
On one report, they said the firemen had quit responding because people were shooting at them. The police...that's another story.
Try telling that to the "perps", after all, it was only two, out of millions, that were originally killed.
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