Posted on 03/27/2007 3:23:40 PM PDT by Wiz
PARIS - Riot police firing tear gas and brandishing batons clashed Tuesday with bands of youths who shattered windows and looted shops at a major Paris train station, officials said. Nine people were arrested.
Officials said about 100 people were involved in the melee at Gare du Nord, one of Paris' most important transport hubs. Officers and police dogs fired tear gas and charged at groups of marauding youths, some of them wearing hoods and swinging metal bars.
The youths responded by throwing trash cans and other objects at the officers. A group of youths smashed the windows of a sporting goods store and looted boxes of shoes. Others attacked automatic drink dispensers and set fire to an information booth.
Commuter Cyril Zidou, a 24-year-old electrician, said he was coming home from the gym "when I just got gassed." One woman was evacuated by paramedics for inhalation of tear gas.
The violence did not appear directly related to France's presidential election less than a month away, but it highlighted the social and economic tensions that the country's new leader will inherit when he or she takes power in May.
The train lines from Gare du Nord radiate out to the same suburbs north of Paris where three weeks of rioting erupted in 2005. That violence was born of pent-up anger especially among youths of Arab and African origin over years of high unemployment and racial inequalities.
Youths at the station said Tuesday's clashes started when police manhandled a young person of North African origin. Some claimed that the youth's arm was broken in the confrontation.
Zidou said the violence had echoes of the riots in 2005. "They never finished," he said. "It slowed down a bit, but it was never over."
Another commuter, Guy Elkoun, said: "There's always a feeling of insecurity in this train station ... I knew this could happen someday."
Officials from Paris' RATP public transport authority said the violence started after a man without a Metro ticket punched two inspectors during a routine ticket check. Youths also attacked the inspectors and later turned on police patrolling the station, officials said.
"The inspectors were hit with projectiles, as were the officers who came to assist them," said Luc Poignant, an official for the Force Ouvriere police union.
The clashes forced the closure of the station's subway and commuter lines for several hours. The station's long-distance rail hub and Eurostar terminal, which is attached to the subway station, remained open throughout the melee.
Ah, Paris in springtime.
Ha!
These "young person(s) of North African origin" are actually originally of Arabian Muslim origin. They invaded North Africa and Eastern and Western Europe before being defeated in Europe. It took 900 years for the Spaniards to drive them out.
Now, recently, they have been invited back in to Europe without a fight.
Yep, Gare de Nord is where the EuroStar connects London and Paris. It's a beautiful train station, but I haven't been there since 2002. Apparently things have gotten nasty.
Paris and France have a real problem on their hands if they're having riots there. Not the best neighborhood in Paris by far, but not the worst, either. And a major transportation hub.
Yutes will be yutes. Pass the pate, will you please, dear?
Mine can come pretty close to firing tear gas if given one of those smoked pigs ears. That or half a bag of Snausages.
Last April when I was at Gare du Nord, there were French soldiers with weapons making the rounds on the ground floor and the upstairs where you have to catch the Eurostar. It looks like they need to put them back there...soon.
Ah, am sure 'em riots are masterminded by the sinister and cynical Nicholas Sarkozy ahead of next month's French elections - a brilliant Rovian strategy to showcase Sarky's toughness in the face of riotous scum you see.....
/Sarc off
My wife and I can't believe how many people, er liberals, we know, who are planning fairly long vacations in France this spring, summer and fall.
Ah.
Spring in Paris...Burning cars and tear gas ...
Officers and police dogs fired tear gas...
Post of the day!
Europe made a huge mistake in letting so many muslim and african people flood into their countries while having such a small birth rate of their own. Europe as we know it will be dead in 25 years and in 50 most of Europe will be a muslim hellhole.
My wife and I just look at these people as they gush and rant about their upcoming trips to Paris and France. When they finish gushing and ranting, we say "Have a nice trip!"
Given the incompetence of Western elected officials it will be up to the citizenry to organize groups that are really vigilant.
We are still boycotting anything French.
We see their wine sales have crashed since 9-11 and the French are now using their wine as vinegar and plowing up their vineyards.
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