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

Reuters ^ | 11/06/05 | Elisabeth Pineau

[No Blue States]

I think the situation is getting at as serious as you suggest. Well said. It seems there has been an escalation tonight with the cops getting shot.
I dont know what it takes for the French gov to open up a can on these vermin.

[jb6]

I bet this will make them shake for real:

[LibertyRocks]

Article from AFP:

France vows tougher security response as riots escalate
06/11/2005 21h44

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/051106214454.2cv36kr1.html

PARIS (AFP) - President Jacques Chirac said restoring public order was his government's "absolute priority," even as the worst rioting France has seen in decades broke out for the eleventh straight night with shots fired at police.

"Those who want to sow violence of fear, they will be arrested, judged and punished," Chirac vowed.

He was speaking after chairing an emergency meeting of key ministers which, he said, "took a certain number of decisions to bolster the action of police and the courts, because today the absolute priority is restoring security and public order."

But there was no sign an end to the rampages that have occurred nightly since October 27, spreading out from Paris to most major cities around France..

Worse, the violence took on a more dangerous tone, with police coming under attack in several locations.

In Grigny, south of Paris, some 30 officers were hurt, two seriously, when assailants fired at them with buckshot, police said.

A car was also used as a battering ram against a police station in the Grand-Mare suburb in the western city of Rouen.

In the southern city of Toulouse, police had to fire tear gas grenades to push back a mob throwing stones and bottles.

"These individuals seem to be looking for contact with police, and they are attacking us, unlike during the other nights," a senior officer told AFP.

Arsonists also set fire to cars and trash cans in the cities of Nantes, Orleans and Rennes, and youths clashed with police in the southern city of Toulouse as the meeting was ending.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who attended the emergency meeting with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and the ministers for defence, justice, the economy and education, said more police would be deployed wherever required.

There will be "a reinforcement of security forces anywhere in the country if it is necessary," he said.

"We will not accept any lawless zone."

The renewed violence, which has already raged on the outskirts of Paris and most of France's other major cities, and even in the heart of the capital itself, has gone on unabated despite the deployment of thousands of police.

More than 800 people have been arrested and 3,500 vehicles torched, mainly in the working-class, high-immigration suburbs of Paris that are at the centre of the troubles.

Most of those arrests and arson attacks occurred over the weekend. Fifty-one cars were destroyed or damaged in central Paris itself overnight Saturday, and 30 youths were arrested, many of them while they were preparing fire-bombs.

Unrest has now flared in up to 200 city suburbs and towns, including areas around Nice, Lille, Bordeaux and Montpellier, police said.

A police chief, Frederic Aureal, said his officers were encountering an unprecedented hostility from gangs, which he described as "prepared, structured, armed".

"We have come face-to-face with people who have attacked us with picks, petanque balls, many Molotov cocktails," he said.

Police overnight Saturday discovered a petrol-bomb factory south of the capital with 50 bottles ready for use. Ski masks were also found.
Firemen try to put out a burning car in a Toulouse neighbourhood

Police helicopters fitted with cameras and searchlights were being used to pursue youths who start fires then race away on scooters.

Officers were also breaking down doors in public housing estates to get offenders.

So far, no one has been killed in the unrest, which was sparked by the electrocution deaths of two teenagers who hid in an electrical sub-station in northeastern Paris to escape a police identity check.

But at least two people have been badly burnt by Molotov cocktails: a fireman, and a handicapped woman unable to get off an ambushed bus.

A 61-year-old was also in a coma after being hit by an assailant in a public housing estate, and a South Korean female TV reporter was kicked unconscious by assailants in a northern suburb on Saturday.

Youths, in interviews, have boasted that they were intensifying the violence because of a sort of "competition" between gangs from different suburbs to get media attention.

They have also expressed anger at Sarkozy, who described delinquents in the suburbs as "rabble" and vowed to clean up crime in the neighbourhoods "with a power-hose."

The United States, Britain, Canada and Russia have all warned their citizens against travelling through some of the worst-hit areas of Paris.

[proud American in Canada]

I am surprised that, given the poverty of the rioters, there hasn't been a lot of looting.

That is surprising.

It's also amazing that not one death has been reported.

[No Blue States]

LOL! LG to the rescue. Payment in Heineken,

[Selene]

This is a War of Recruitment

AL-JAZEERA HEADLINE:

France- History of discrimination
11/6/2005 3:00:00 PM GMT
Violent riots that plagued France in recent days reflect the unjust discrimination in the French society

READER COMMENTS ARE INTERESTING:

"the fact is that 6 millions lims live in france, 10% of the population, so either the french and others learn to let us live the way we want to, or they gonna have problems for long time to come because just the sheer numbers of lims in france is enough to keep the fight going for long time. other western lands, heed our advice, treat us good or sooner or later your countries will recieve what is happening in france with the same problem of not being able to stop it."

[samtheman]

I said this days ago. Send in Carter. Straight into the communities of "troubled youth". It's about time he earned that Peace Prize of his.

[Shortstop7]

Fox just reported..............that 10 police officers had been hit.....

[Dark Skies]

It's also amazing that not one death has been reported.

Just guessing, of course, but I'll bet the operative word there is "reported."

[Ray66]

This some video camera footage I'd like to seen played.

It's from babelfish web translation:

Those which live the district for a long time will remember, them, of dead of this man like nightmare. Those from here will remember that, Thursday October 27 2005 around 4 p.m., Jean-Claude Irvoas, commercial in a company of urban furniture, had stationed his car street of Marseilles - while asking its wife and her 16 year old daughter to await it inside -, time to take a photograph of a standard lamp which he wanted to add to his catalogue. Some will have even kept the newspaper cuttings of the time telling the arrival of three young people of the district come to tear off its camera to him, the scuffle, the blows with three against one and the anguish of this 56 year old man, the head broken against a kerb of pavement.The whole of the scene being filmed by a camera of video surveillance.

http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=fr_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lefigaro.fr%2Fmagazine%2F20051104.MAG0007.html%3F213913

[Dane]

Does anyone have a live feed or any info from ground zero in Paris.

JMO, looks like a broadcast(TV) news blackout is in force in France.

The reports of mayhen and damage come out the next day through traditional wire reports.

Plus knowing French labor rules it probably is impossible to find freelance TV cameramen for reporting.

[samtheman]

great pics

[proud American in Canada]

I'll bet the operative word there is "reported."

My thoughts exactly.

[samtheman]

it's funny though, al-jazeera isn't saying anthing the french left isn't already saying

[Selene]

a South Korean female TV reporter was kicked unconscious by assailants

THEY WANT RESPECT?

[Dane]

The United States, Britain, Canada and Russia have all warned their citizens against travelling through some of the worst-hit areas of Paris

The US Embassy in Paris is advising people not to take the train from De Gaulle airport(the major airport in Paris) into the middle of Paris, since that line has been disrupted.

[Dane]

Dana Lewis on Fox saying the police spokesman is calling for a curfew and for the army to be called.

He said that police morale is close to zero.

[livius]

They're probably not that poor. My daughter is a cop in a Western US city, and when she goes into ghetto apartments they have a couple of new SUVs out front and a huge plasma TV as their centerpiece. These people, btw, are on welfare, or at any rate, the holder of the apt. (either a single woman or an elderly person) is technically on welfare or receiving SS or SSI payments.

There was a study about 5-6 years ago when I was living in NYC that showed the amount of economic activity in Harlem compared to the recorded amount of income entering. Nowhere close. Much more buying power than income, and you know that folks don't come in from the burbs to buy sneakers on 125th St.

That said, this has nothing to do with income. The black riots really had to do with wanting to get what the Koreans had worked for - without staying up all night behind a cash register to get it. Once the rioters got a few goodies, they were happy.

But this is ideological, even though the rioters themselves may not be fully aware of it.

[jlasoon]

I think he actually said police morale was at ZERO 0.

[little jeremiah]

It can't help but make one wonder what the truth is. Is the reporting accurate?