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French youths riot again Tue Nov 8, 2005 10:16 AM GMT Villepin announces curfews French officials, community leaders By Tom Heneghan PARIS (Reuters) - Youths rioted across France overnight, torching more than 1,000 vehicles, despite government plans to impose curfews to quell almost two weeks of unrest. The protests, blamed on racism and unemployment, receded in the Paris region after shots were fired at police the previous night but continued unabated in other parts of France in the early hours of Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said. Other countries watched nervously and some issued travel warnings. Five cars were torched overnight...

Riots that began on the outskirts of Paris have spread into the center of the French capital and to other communities in other parts of the country. Thousands of cars have been set on fire and the police and even medical personnel have been shot at. -- snip -- Like housing projects in America, many of these are centers of social degeneration, lawlessness and violence. Three years ago, profound British social critic Theodore Dalrymple wrote of "burned-out and eviscerated carcasses of cars everywhere" in these projects, among other signs of social degeneration. This was in an essay titled "The Barbarians...