Riots In France Turn Deadly (1st fatality)

WCBSTV ^ | November 7, 2005

[NYer]

PARIS A man who was beaten by an attacker while trying to extinguish a trash can fire during riots north of Paris has died of his injuries, becoming the first fatality since the urban unrest started 11 days ago, a police official said Monday. Youths overnight injured three dozen officers and burned more than 1,400 vehicles.

Apparent copycat attacks spread to other European cities for the first time, with five cars torched outside Brussels' main train station, police in the Belgian capital said.

Australia, Austria and Britain became the latest countries to advise their citizens to exercise care in France, joining the United States and Russia in warning tourists to stay away from violence-hit areas.

Alain Rahmouni, a national police spokesman, said the man who was beaten died at a hospital from injuries sustained in the attack, but he had no immediate details about the victim's age or his attacker.

The man was caught by surprise by an attacker after rushing out of his apartment building to put out the fire, Rahmouni said.

Clashes around France left 36 police injured, and vandals burned 1,408 vehicles overnight Sunday-Monday, setting a new high for overnight arson and violence since the rioting started Oct. 27, national police chief Michel Gaudin said.

The mayhem started as an outburst of anger in suburban Paris housing projects and has fanned out nationwide among disaffected youths, mostly of Muslim or African origin, to become France's worst civil unrest in over a decade.

Attacks overnight were reported in 274 towns and police made 395 arrests, Gaudin said.

"This spread, with a sort of shock wave spreading across the country, shows up in the number of towns affected," Gaudin said, noting that the violence appeared to be sliding away from its flash point in the Parisian suburbs and worsening elsewhere.

It was the first time police were injured by weapons fire amid signs that rioters were deliberately seeking out clashes with police, officials said.

Among the injured police, 10 were injured by youths firing fine-grain birdshot in a late night clash in the southern Paris suburb of Grigny, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. Two were hospitalized but their lives were not in danger. One was wounded in the neck, the other in the legs.

The unrest began in the low-income Paris suburb of
Clichy-sous-Bois, after the deaths of two teenagers of Mauritanian and Tunisian origin. The youths were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police in a power substation. They apparently thought they were being chased.

There have been 4,700 cars burned in France since the rioting began, and 1,200 suspects have been detained at least temporarily, Gaudin said.

The growing violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs, where many Africans and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair -- fertile terrain for crime of all sorts as well as for Muslim extremists offering frustrated youths a way out.

France, with some 5 million Muslims, has the largest Islamic population in Western Europe.

Meanwhile, the government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm.

President Jacques Chirac promised stern punishment for those behind the attacks, making his first public address Sunday since the riots started.

"The law must have the last word," Chirac said after a security meeting with top ministers. France is determined "to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear, and they will be arrested, judged and punished."

France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, issued a fatwa, or religious decree. It forbade all those "who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others."

Arsonists burned two schools and a bus in the central city of Saint-Etienne and its suburbs, and two people were injured in the bus attack. Churches were set ablaze in northern Lens and southern Sete, he said. The extent of damage was not immediately clear.

In Colombes in suburban Paris, youths pelted rocks at a bus, sending a 13-month-old child to the hospital with a head injury, Hamon said, while a daycare center was burned in Saint-Maurice, another Paris suburb.

Much of the youths' anger has focused on law-and-order Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who inflamed passions by referring to troublemakers as "scum."

In Strasbourg, youths stole a car and rammed it into a housing project, setting the vehicle and the building on fire.

"We'll stop when Sarkozy steps down," said the defiant 17-year-old driver of the car, who gave his name only as Murat. Under arrest, he and several others awaited a ride to the police station as smoke poured from the windows of the housing project behind them.

[Greenpees]

It's just a matter of time before Al Quaeda begins to seriously arm these punks. Then it's going to get a little tougher to contain.

Viva le appeasers. I Hope they can dig themselves out of this one.

[JennysCool]

Much of the youths' anger has focused on law-and-order Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who inflamed passions by referring to troublemakers as "scum."

Remember -- it's always important to sympathize with, and understand the root motivations of, the guy burning your car. At least in France.

[TX Bluebonnet]

They beat some old man who was trying to put out a trash can fire??? Now they're just drunk on power. They've been basically unchallenged for over 10 days. Someone has got to lay down the law, if it's not already too late. Curfews, shoot to kill warnings/orders with sniper and troops to back it up.

[NYer]

French police holds a shotgun shell recovered after they were shot upon in Grigny, south of Paris on the 11th night of violence late November 6, 2005. France's urban riots reached a new peak in their 10th night as petrol bombings spread from Paris's run-down suburbs to the centre of the capital and began to unnerve neighbouring countries. President Jacques Chirac summoned his security, social affairs and finance ministers to an emergency meeting at 1700 GMT to plot a response after 1,300 vehicles were destroyed in the latest night of chaos -- a new high. ATTENTION EDITORS - FRENCH LAW REQUIRES THAT FACES OF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ARE MASKED IN PUBLICATIONS WITHIN FRANCE REUTERS/Franck Prevel

[Cautor]

The US needs to get the hell out of NATO before it gets dragged into a war in old Europe fighting the mohammedan fascists on behalf of pussy countries like France, Belgium, Sweden and others that don't have the guts to do their own fighting.

[Polyxene]

"French police hold a position in a residential sector of Corberil-Essones, southern suburb of Paris."

I hate to say it, but I wonder how long these police will stay on duty. If the situation stays this bad or worsens, I'm afraid there will be mass desertions (like in NO). Then what? The French military? Do they have one?

[Plutarch]

...rioters were deliberately seeking out clashes with police...

Then it is an insurrection, not a riot.

[Allen H]

I doubt this is the "first" fatality to the radical islamist terrorist uprising in france. I think this is just the first one that has been reported. Now there are copy cat attacks in Belgium. God help Europe if the muslim population is taking this in france as a sign that it's time for them to rise up against the European nations. If this happens, it is OFFICIALLY the FOURTH great crusades. It is funny how the media doesn't want to talk about it. This in france is nothing but islamist terrorism. Whether the terrorists are domestic citizens of foreigner muslims, doesn't matter. This proves that appeasement and dealing from weakness and siding with muslim radicals over U.S. policy, does not work. france is paying for it's many years of foreign policy mistakes, and they're paying big.

[TXBSAFH]

[Fargo44]

"Remember -- it's always important to sympathize with, and understand the root motivations of, the guy burning your car. At least in France."

Love it! Yes to take a page out of the democ_RATS play book: Gee what France needs is an exit strategy!!! Poetic Justice I say.

[Allen H]

AMEN!!! Calling this a "riot" proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the liberal media is refusing to admit the fact that this 100% muslim caused violence in france is a total rejection of the idea that you can appease and side with muslims and side with squatting palestinians against Israel, and oppose war in Iraq, siding with hussein against America, and be safe. The muslims are throing all that weakness and appeasement right inthe face of the frenchie french. france is in a state of insurrection, and if the reports of it spreading to Belgium now, this is a European problems now, not just a french problem. Europe is on the cusp of having to learn that when you sleep with the enemy, you more times than not wake up with your throat slit.

[NYer]

Then it is an insurrection, not a riot.

How long before Muslims in other countries join the fraccas in 'sympathy'. Chirac has not been able to control the situation in France; it's just a matter of time before this expands across Europe.

[Allen H]

Man oh man, and I thought I despised the french. Ouch. 8) heh heh heh. THAT is cool. 8)

[arthurus]

What is he holding in his left hand?

Looks like a cell phone.

[arthurus]

The French military? Do they have one?

Yes. It is in Cote d'Ivoire shooting citizens.

[arthurus]

The French military? Do they have one?

You're slow.

[arthurus]

How long before Muslims in other countries join the fraccas in 'sympathy'

Yesterday.

[duffthor]

Not making any comment here, just honestly wondering how you all think the US will handle it if this starts happening in Detroit for example.

[Fruitbat]

Paris should be lovely this Christmas season.

As long as it didn't interfere with Ramadan, it's all OK though.

Today: Vive Le France.

Tomorrow: Allahu Akbar!

[Fruitbat]

Not making any comment here, just honestly wondering how you all think the US will handle it if this starts happening in Detroit for example.

Good question. Americans have gotten soft. If it happens in many places "other than Detroit", I'd think there'd be organized counter efforts with the goals of 'quick resolve' in mind. Much would likely hinge on the medium-term outcomes in Europe as well.