Pasted from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200..._re_eu/france_violence
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Police reinforcements streamed into the tough suburbs north of Paris on Tuesday after a second night of rioting by bands of youths who have burned cars and buildings and ? in an ominous turn ? shot at officers.
A senior police union official warned that "urban guerrillas" had joined the unrest, saying the violence was worse than during three weeks of rioting that raged around French cities in 2005, when firearms were rarely used. More than 80 officers were reported injured overnight.
The suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, where the trouble first erupted, appeared calm in the early hours after sundown Tuesday. But rioting flared in the southern city of Toulouse, where 10 cars and a library went up in flames, police said.
The government was striving to keep violence from spreading in a stern test for new President Nicolas Sarkozy. It showed that anger still smolders in France's poor neighborhoods, where many Arabs, blacks and other minorities live largely isolated from the rest of society.
The trigger was the deaths Sunday of two minority teens when their motorscooter collided with a police car in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town on Paris' northern edge.
Residents claimed the officers left without helping the teens. Prosecutor Marie-Therese de Givry denied that, saying police stayed on the scene until firefighters arrived.
Rioting and arson erupted Sunday night, with youths attacking a police station. The violence worsened Monday night as it spread from Villiers-le-Bel to other impoverished suburbs north of the French capital. Rioters burned a library, a nursery school and a car dealership and tried to set some buildings on fire by crashing burning cars into them.
More police moved in Tuesday trying to prevent a third night of rioting, as officials sought to keep the upheaval from spreading to other impoverished areas as happened two years ago.
Patrice Ribeiro of the Synergie police union said rioters this time included "genuine urban guerrillas," saying the use of firearms ? hunting shotguns so far ? had added a dangerous dimension.
Police said 82 officers were injured Monday night, 10 of them by buckshot and pellets. Four were seriously wounded, the force said. Police unions said 30 officers were struck by buckshot.
One rioter with a shotgun "was firing off two shots, reloading in a stairwell, coming back out ? boom, boom ? and firing again," said Gilles Wiart, No. 2 official in the SGP-FO police union.
Youths, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants, again appeared to be lashing out at police and other targets seen to represent a French establishment they feel has left them behind.
"I don't think it's an ethnic problem," Wiart said. "Most of all it is youths who reject all state authority. They attack firefighters, everything that represents the state."
Suspicion of the police runs high among people in the drab housing project where the two teenagers died in the crash. The boys were identified in French media only by their first names, Lakhami, 16, and Mouhsin, 15.
There have long been tensions between France's largely white police force and the ethnic minorities trapped in poor neighborhoods.
Despite decades of problems and heavy state investments to improve housing and create jobs, the depressed projects that ring Paris are a world apart from the tourist attractions of the capital. Police speak of no-go zones where they and firefighters fear to patrol.
"The problem of bad relations between the police and minorities is underestimated," said criminologist Sebastian Roche.
Sarkozy, speaking from China, appealed for calm and called a security meeting with his Cabinet ministers for Wednesday on his return home.
Sarkozy was interior minister, in charge of police, during the riots of 2005 and took a hard line against the violence. He angered many in housing projects when he called delinquents there "scum."
The rioting youths "want Sarkozy ? they want him to come and explain" what happened to the two teenage boys, said Linda Beddar, a 40-year-old mother of three in Villiers-le-Bel. Beddar woke Tuesday to find the library across from her house a burned-out shell.
The violence two years ago also started in the suburbs of northern Paris, when two teens were electrocuted in a power substation while hiding from police. The government is keen to keep the new violence from spreading.
"We will not let go. We will fight with all the force the nation is capable of," Prime Minister Francois Fillon told firefighters in Villiers-le-Bel.
Fillon spoke with a firefighter who was shot by rioters and handled the bullet that was extracted from the man's arm.
The prime minister, accompanied by Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, visited Villiers-le-Bel again after nightfall to show support for police.
In Villiers-le-Bel, arsonists set fire to the municipal library and burned books littered its floor Tuesday. Shops and businesses were also attacked, and more than 70 vehicles were torched, authorities said.
Rioters even rammed burning cars into buildings, trying to set the structures on fire, authorities said. Police reported six arrests.
Several hundred youths organized in small groups led the rioting in Villiers-le-Bel, and incidents were also reported in five other towns north of Paris, the regional government reported.
It refused to give specific figures on injuries among the police, rioters or other civilians, or the numbers of cars and buildings set on fire, saying it feared that doing so would encourage youths to try to wound more officers and destroy more property.
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I wonder what Sarkozy is going to do now?
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Police reinforcements streamed into the tough suburbs north of Paris on Tuesday after a second night of rioting by bands of youths who have burned cars and buildings and ? in an ominous turn ? shot at officers.
A senior police union official warned that "urban guerrillas" had joined the unrest, saying the violence was worse than during three weeks of rioting that raged around French cities in 2005, when firearms were rarely used. More than 80 officers were reported injured overnight.
The suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, where the trouble first erupted, appeared calm in the early hours after sundown Tuesday. But rioting flared in the southern city of Toulouse, where 10 cars and a library went up in flames, police said.
The government was striving to keep violence from spreading in a stern test for new President Nicolas Sarkozy. It showed that anger still smolders in France's poor neighborhoods, where many Arabs, blacks and other minorities live largely isolated from the rest of society.
The trigger was the deaths Sunday of two minority teens when their motorscooter collided with a police car in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town on Paris' northern edge.
Residents claimed the officers left without helping the teens. Prosecutor Marie-Therese de Givry denied that, saying police stayed on the scene until firefighters arrived.
Rioting and arson erupted Sunday night, with youths attacking a police station. The violence worsened Monday night as it spread from Villiers-le-Bel to other impoverished suburbs north of the French capital. Rioters burned a library, a nursery school and a car dealership and tried to set some buildings on fire by crashing burning cars into them.
More police moved in Tuesday trying to prevent a third night of rioting, as officials sought to keep the upheaval from spreading to other impoverished areas as happened two years ago.
Patrice Ribeiro of the Synergie police union said rioters this time included "genuine urban guerrillas," saying the use of firearms ? hunting shotguns so far ? had added a dangerous dimension.
Police said 82 officers were injured Monday night, 10 of them by buckshot and pellets. Four were seriously wounded, the force said. Police unions said 30 officers were struck by buckshot.
One rioter with a shotgun "was firing off two shots, reloading in a stairwell, coming back out ? boom, boom ? and firing again," said Gilles Wiart, No. 2 official in the SGP-FO police union.
Youths, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants, again appeared to be lashing out at police and other targets seen to represent a French establishment they feel has left them behind.
"I don't think it's an ethnic problem," Wiart said. "Most of all it is youths who reject all state authority. They attack firefighters, everything that represents the state."
Suspicion of the police runs high among people in the drab housing project where the two teenagers died in the crash. The boys were identified in French media only by their first names, Lakhami, 16, and Mouhsin, 15.
There have long been tensions between France's largely white police force and the ethnic minorities trapped in poor neighborhoods.
Despite decades of problems and heavy state investments to improve housing and create jobs, the depressed projects that ring Paris are a world apart from the tourist attractions of the capital. Police speak of no-go zones where they and firefighters fear to patrol.
"The problem of bad relations between the police and minorities is underestimated," said criminologist Sebastian Roche.
Sarkozy, speaking from China, appealed for calm and called a security meeting with his Cabinet ministers for Wednesday on his return home.
Sarkozy was interior minister, in charge of police, during the riots of 2005 and took a hard line against the violence. He angered many in housing projects when he called delinquents there "scum."
The rioting youths "want Sarkozy ? they want him to come and explain" what happened to the two teenage boys, said Linda Beddar, a 40-year-old mother of three in Villiers-le-Bel. Beddar woke Tuesday to find the library across from her house a burned-out shell.
The violence two years ago also started in the suburbs of northern Paris, when two teens were electrocuted in a power substation while hiding from police. The government is keen to keep the new violence from spreading.
"We will not let go. We will fight with all the force the nation is capable of," Prime Minister Francois Fillon told firefighters in Villiers-le-Bel.
Fillon spoke with a firefighter who was shot by rioters and handled the bullet that was extracted from the man's arm.
The prime minister, accompanied by Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, visited Villiers-le-Bel again after nightfall to show support for police.
In Villiers-le-Bel, arsonists set fire to the municipal library and burned books littered its floor Tuesday. Shops and businesses were also attacked, and more than 70 vehicles were torched, authorities said.
Rioters even rammed burning cars into buildings, trying to set the structures on fire, authorities said. Police reported six arrests.
Several hundred youths organized in small groups led the rioting in Villiers-le-Bel, and incidents were also reported in five other towns north of Paris, the regional government reported.
It refused to give specific figures on injuries among the police, rioters or other civilians, or the numbers of cars and buildings set on fire, saying it feared that doing so would encourage youths to try to wound more officers and destroy more property.
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I wonder what Sarkozy is going to do now?