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?'"

The Role of Islam (Chuck Missler, Koinonia House)

RE: Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain

In the 8th century, Muslim armies from North Africa invaded the Iberian Peninsula, fragmenting it into separate kingdoms known as the Spains. About 980 of these independent Spains began their Reconquista, War of Reconquest, against their Islamic invaders. The primary source of financing was trade with the Far East.

By the 1400s, the passages to the East were denied to the Christian West by the Muslims who controlled the main overland routes to the Orient. Bandits, desert heat and sand storms, as well as other hazards eventually made Europe's alternate overland routes too dangerous and expensive. A new route, by sea, was the challenge.

By the late 13th century, the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon had reconquered most of the Muslim-controlled territory. In 1479 the two kingdoms were united as a result of the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. The last Muslim kingdom, Granada, was reconquered in 1492, which seems to have set the stage for the famous voyage. The Maritime Technology of 15th Century.

Contrary to popular belief, most of the educated of 15th century Europe held to the concept of a spherical earth.

Hebrew astronomers, like Abraham Zacuto, who the explorer Vasco Da Gama had consulted seeking a sea route to India around Africa, furnished the celestial time tables.

Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, whose mathematical system became the basis for modern trigonometry, had invented a quadrant known as Jacob's Staff. This angle- measuring de-vice was used by Columbus, Da Gama, and Ferdinand Ma-gellan, the first to circumnavigate the earth.

Abraham Ibn Esra, Jacob ben Machir, and Jacob Carsoni developed technical apparatus like the Astrolabe, used to determine the latitude and longitude of a position.

Cartography, the art and science of making maps and charts, was also an area of Jewish expertise in Europe. One such specialist was Abraham Cresques, known as "The Master of Maps and Compasses." Another was his son, Jehudah ben Cresques, who administered several schools of cartography, thus preparing for the "age of discovery" on their horizon.

For those keeping score:
From AFP

Police were hurt by shots and baseball-bat-wielding youths as rioting raged on for its eleventh night in France despite a vow from President Jacques Chirac that public order would be restored.

Thirty riot squad officers were hit by buckshot fired at them in suburbs south of Paris, police said. Two were hospitalised with serious wounds, and were visited late Sunday by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

Elsewhere, officers were targeted by gangs roaming low-income neighbourhoods on the outskirts of major cities and setting fire to scores of vehicles and properties.

The violence -- the worst the country has seen since 1968 student revolts -- continued despite increasingly tough reactions from police, who have arrested more than 800 people since the troubles began.

In all, police said at midnight (2300 GMT Sunday), 34 police officers had been lightly wounded during the first part of the night while 528 vehicles had been torched, the majority outside the Paris region, and 95 people arrested.

Chirac said "the absolute priority is restoring security and public order," after chairing an emergency meeting with key ministers Sunday evening.

"Those who want to sow violence of fear, they will be arrested, judged and punished," he promised, adding that "certain decisions" had been taken to boost the police and court decisions during the crisis.

In the western city of Rouen, a car was used as a battering ram against a police station, while in Toulouse, in the south, police had to fire tear gas grenades to push back a mob carrying baseball bats and 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.

The new edge to the violence confirmed the riots were worsening, adding to a weekend that took the unrest to new heights with hundreds of vehicles burnt and up to 200 localities affected.

So far, more than 3,500 vehicles have been torched, including, overnight Sunday, eight trucks parked near the town of Roanne. Schools and businesses were also set alight in various places around the country.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who attended the emergency meeting with Interior Minister 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 extent of the unrest was brought home overnight Saturday, when 51 cars were petrol-bombed in the heart of Paris -- the first time the centre of the capital suffered significant attacks.

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.

Police helicopters fitted with cameras and searchlights were being used to pursue youths who were starting fires then racing 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 October 27 by the electrocution deaths of two teenagers who hid in an electrical sub-station in northeastern Paris to escape a police identity check.

But some of the injuries have been serious. At least two people have been badly burnt by Molotov cocktails: a fireman who had his face disfigured, and a handicapped woman doused with fuel on 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 France.

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