Alael
11-28-2007, 01:48 PM
Some articles from International Herald Tribune:
Riot police in France on alert for firearms
By Katrin Bennhold Published: November 27, 2007
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France: Dodging rocks and projectiles, the police lined the streets of this tense suburb Tuesday where angry youths have vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of two teenagers who died in a collision with a police car.
The town, where rioting flared Sunday night after the accident and escalated Monday night, saw incidents of rock throwing by youths Tuesday but appeared mostly calm in the hours after nightfall. In the neighboring town of Sarcelles, at least one police officer was wounded by a Molotov cocktail. Seven arrests were made after minor skirmishes.
Unrest spread to the southern city of Toulouse, where 10 cars and a library went up in flames, the police said, according to an Associated Press report.
The mood remained tense in the northern suburbs of Paris, however, because of the appearance of shotguns in the hands of a small number of rioters - a rare sight in the last major outbreak of suburban unrest, in 2005.
Police union officials had warned earlier Tuesday that the violence was escalating into urban guerrilla warfare. More than 80 officers have been wounded so far - four of them as a result of gunfire - and the rage was still simmering Tuesday. Inside the City Hall of Villiers-le-Bel, a group of visiting mayors appealed for calm while police officers dodged rocks outside in the afternoon.
"We are sitting targets," said Sophie Bar, a local police officer who stood guard outside City Hall. "They were throwing rocks at us and it was impossible to see where they came from. They just came raining over the roof."
The violence was triggered by the deaths of two teenagers on a motorbike who were killed in a crash with a police car Sunday night. The scene, with angry youths targeting the police mostly with firebombs, rocks and other projectiles, was reminiscent of three weeks of rioting in 2005.
But senior police officials warned that the violence was more intense this time.
"Things have changed since 2005," said Joachim Masanet, secretary general of the police wing of the UNSA trade union. "We have crossed a red line. When these kids aim their guns at police officers, they want to kill them. They are no longer afraid to shoot a policeman. We are only on the second day since the accident, and already they are shooting guns at the police."
Some young men stood by the charred timbers of the town's police station, Tuesday laughing and surveying the damage.
Cem, 18, of Turkish origin, declined to give his name because he feared police reprisals. But he and his friend Karim, of Algerian descent, said they both had participated in rioting over the past two days.
"That's just the beginning," Cem said. "This is a war. There is no mercy. We want two cops dead."
"The police brought this on themselves," Karim added. "They will regret it."
Six officers hurt in the clashes Monday were in serious condition, according to Francis Debuire, a police union official. Four were wounded by gunfire, including one who lost an eye and another who suffered a shattered shoulder.
The biggest risk, the police say, is that the violence will spread. In 2005, unrest cascaded through more than 300 towns, leaving 10,000 cars burned and 4,700 people arrested.
As night fell in Villiers-le-Bel, the anxiety was evident. Strangers warned people to hide their portable telephones because youths were snatching them on the street. People hurried to their homes, while some gathered in knots on street corners. Police helicopters circling public housing developments spotted stockpiles of rocks stacked along the roofs.
Naim Masoud, 39, a teaching assistant in Villiers-le-Bel, said that, in her school, even 8-year-old children talked about racism and discrimination by the police.
"It will take a lot more than riot police to cure this neighborhood," she said. "These children feel like foreigners. It is inexcusable what they are doing, but the seeds are deep."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/27/europe/france.php#end_main
In French suburbs, same rage, but new tactics
By Elaine Sciolino Published: November 27, 2007
PARIS: Two years after France's immigrant suburbs exploded in rage, the rituals and acts of resentment have reappeared with an eerie sameness: roving gangs clashing with riot police forces, the government appealing for calm, residents complaining that they are ignored.
And while the scale of the unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it, in some sense, more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police.
More than 100 officers have been wounded, several of them seriously, according to the police. Thirty were hit with buckshot and pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, Patrice Ribeiro, a police spokesman, said in a telephone interview. One of the officers lost an eye; another's shoulder was shattered by gunfire.
It is legal to own a shotgun in France — as long as the owner has a license — and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youths were procuring more weapons.
"This is a real guerrilla war," Ribeiro told RTL radio, warning that the police, who have struggled to avoid excessive force, will not be fired upon indefinitely without responding.
The police have made more than 30 arrests but have been restrained in controlling the violence, using tear gas to disperse the bands of young people and firing paint balls to identify people for possible arrests later.
The prefecture of the police in the Val d'Oise area, where most of the violence has occurred, said Tuesday night that there were no reported injuries among civilians that could be linked to the police.
The events of the past three days, set off by the deaths of two teenagers whose minibike collided with a police vehicle on Sunday, make clear that the underlying causes of frustration and anger — particularly among unemployed, undereducated youths, mostly the offspring of Arab and African immigrants — remain the same.
"We have heard promise after promise, but nothing has been done in the suburbs since the last riots, nothing," said François Pupponi, the Socialist mayor of Sarcelles, which has been struck by the violence, in an interview. "The suburbs are like tinderboxes. You have people in terrible social circumstances, plus all the rage, plus all the hate, plus all the rumors, and all you need is one spark to set them on fire."
On Tuesday, there were the first signs of the violence spreading beyond the Paris region when a dozen cars were set afire in the southern city of Toulouse.
In the wake of the unrest in 2005, the government of then-President Jacques Chirac (with Nicolas Sarkozy, now the president, as the tough, law-and-order interior minister) announced measures to improve life in the suburbs, including extra money for housing, schools and neighborhood associations, as well as counseling and job training for unemployed youths. None has gone very far.
At that time, Sarkozy alienated large numbers of inhabitants in the troubled ethnic pockets of France, but afterward reverted to a low-key approach, which he has maintained ever since. During his presidential campaign, he stayed away from the troubled suburbs, aware that his presence could inflame public opinion against him.
In his six months as president, he has largely focused on injecting new life into France's flaccid economy through creating jobs and lowering taxes and consumer prices.
His most notable initiative in dealing with youth crime has been punitive: the passage of a law last July that required a minimum sentence for repeat offenders and in many cases allowed minors between 16 and 18 years old to be tried and sentenced as adults.
Since September, Fadela Amara, his outspoken junior minister charged with drawing up a policy for the suburbs, has been holding town hall meetings throughout France in preparation for what is to be a "Marshall Plan" for the suburbs. Her proposals are scheduled to be made public in January.
"We've been talking about a Marshall Plan for the suburbs since the early 1990s," said Adil Jazouli, a sociologist who focuses on the suburbs. "We don't need poetry. We don't need reflection. We need money."
After he returns from China on Wednesday morning, Sarkozy plans to visit a seriously wounded senior policeman at a hospital near the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel.
It was in Villiers-le-Bel on Sunday afternoon that the deaths of two teenagers identified as Moushin, 15, and Larimi, 16, occurred, the event that set off the latest unrest. The teenagers were riding without helmets on a minibike that collided with a police car; rumors that the police had caused the accident elicited calls for revenge.
The crash was reminiscent of the electrocution deaths in another Paris suburb in October 2005 of two teenagers, who, according to some accounts, were running away from police. That event set off the worst civil unrest in France in four decades, plunging the country into what Chirac called "a profound malaise."
But Sarkozy, still reeling from huge transit strikes and student protests throughout France this month, is unlikely to use the current unrest as a vehicle to turn introspective or vent his rage too loudly at those he once called "scum."
In 2005, he vowed to clean out young troublemakers from one Paris suburb with a Kärcher, the brand name of a high-powered hose used to wash off graffiti; when he pledged in another suburb that year to rid poor suburban neighborhoods of their "scum," he was pelted with bottles and rocks.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister François Fillon told Parliament that the clashes were "unacceptable, intolerable, incomprehensible," and he pledged punishment for the offenders in the affected suburbs.
"Those who shoot at policemen, those who beat a police officer almost to death, are criminals and must be treated as such," he said, adding, "We will do everything so that tonight there is a maximum security presence."
Under heavy security on Tuesday night, Fillon visited Villiers-le-Bel, where the two youths had died, in what he called a show of support for the police and firefighters. About 1,000 police officers were deployed there.
Critics of the Sarkozy government complain that many areas in the suburbs are without a police presence, and that the only time there is a show of security is after violence erupts.
"Sarkozy promised to send more police to the suburbs, but in so many places there are fewer police than there were two years ago," said Mohamed Hamidi, the French founder of Bondy Blog, a popular political blog created in the Paris suburb of Bondy after the outbreak of violence in 2005. "He didn't keep his word. Who suffers from all the violence and the burning cars? The people who live in these neighborhoods."
In Villiers-le-Bel on Tuesday night, the atmosphere was tense, with white police trucks and antiriot police officers on the streets. Earlier in the day, about 300 people, including children, marched silently in memory of the two dead teenagers.
At a bakery on a small plaza in town, Habib Friaa, the baker, mourned their deaths, especially that of Larimi, who had started an apprenticeship with him two months ago.
"Baking was his passion," Friaa said. "He was a courageous young man, someone who had hope."
Ariane Bernard contributed reporting from Paris, and Basil Katz from Villiers-le-Bel.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/28/europe/28france.php?page=1
Paris suburb riots called 'a lot worse' than in 2005
News Analysis
By Elaine Sciolino Published: November 27, 2007
PARIS: The rituals and acts of rage have an eerie sameness to them: roving gangs of angry youths clashing with the riot police in France's edgy suburbs, the government appealing for calm, local officials and residents complaining that their problems are ignored.
Two years after an orgy of violence in which rioters in more than 300 suburbs and towns torched cars, trashed businesses and ambushed the riot police and firefighters, Villiers-le-Bel and several nearby suburbs of Paris similarly have erupted in violence and destruction.
In one sense, the unrest seems to be more menacing than during the early days of the three weeks of rioting in 2005. Then, the youth seemed disorganized, their destruction largely caused by rock-throwing and arson and aimed at the closest and easiest targets, like cars. This time, hunting shotguns, as well as gasoline bombs and rocks, have been turned on the police.
"From what our colleagues on the scene tell us, this is a situation that is a lot worse than what we saw in 2005," Patrice Ribeiro, a police officer and senior union official, told RTL radio Tuesday. He added, "A line was crossed last night, that is to say, they used weapons, they used weapons and fired on the police. This is a real guerrilla war."
Ribeiro warned that the police, who have struggled to avoid excessive force, would not be fired upon indefinitely without responding.
More than 80 police officers already have been wounded the clashes, several of them seriously, Ribeiro said later by telephone. Thirty of them were hit with pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, he added. It is legal to own a shotgun in France - as long as the owner has a license - and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youth were procuring more shotguns.
It is impossible to predict whether the violence will continue and spread to the much larger cluster of Parisian suburbs around the town of Seine-Saint-Denis, the area where violence was concentrated in 2005, or to the rest of the country.
But the events of the past three days make clear that the underlying causes of frustration and anger - particularly among unemployed, undereducated youth, mostly the offspring of Arab and African immigrants - remain the same.
"We have heard promise after promise, but nothing has been done in the suburbs since the last riots, nothing," said François Pupponi, the Socialist mayor of Sarcelles, which has been struck by violence. "The suburbs are like tinderboxes. You have people in terrible social circumstances, plus all the rage, plus all the hate, plus all the rumors and all you need is one spark to set them on fire."
Indeed, after the unrest in 2005, the government of then-President Jacques Chirac - with Nicolas Sarkozy, now president, as the tough law-and-order interior minister - announced measures to improve life in the suburbs, including extra money for housing, schools and neighborhood associations and counseling and job training for unemployed youths. None has gone very far.
At that time, Sarkozy alienated a huge swath of inhabitants in the troubled ethnic pockets of France, but afterward reverted to a low-key approach, which he has maintained ever since. During his presidential campaign, he stayed away from France's suburbs, aware that his presence would only inflame public opinion against him.
In his six months as president, he largely has focused on injecting new life into France's flaccid economy through job creation and lowering taxes and consumer prices. His most notable initiative in dealing with youth crime has been punitive: the passage of a law last July that required a minimum sentence for repeat offenders and in many cases allowed minors between 16 and 18 years of age to be tried and sentenced as adults.
Since September, Fadela Amara, his outspoken junior minister who has been given the task of drawing up a policy for the suburbs, has been holding town hall meetings throughout France in preparation for what is to be a "Marshall Plan" for the suburbs. Her proposals are scheduled to be unveiled in January.
"We've been talking about a Marshall Plan for the suburbs since the early 1990s," said Adil Jazouli, a sociologist who focuses on the suburbs. "We don't need poetry. We don't need reflection. We need money."
After he returns home from China, Sarkozy on Wednesday plans to visit a seriously wounded senior police officers at a hospital near the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel.
It was there that on Sunday afternoon the deaths of two teenagers identified as Moushin, 15, and Larimi, 16, occurred, the event that sparked the latest unrest. The teenagers were riding without helmets in a mini-motorbike that crashed into a police car on Sunday.
The accident was reminiscent of the electrocution deaths of two teenagers in another Paris suburb in October 2005, who, according to some accounts, were running away from the police. That event triggered the worst civil unrest in France in four decades.
But Sarkozy, still reeling from massive transit strikes and student protests this month throughout France, is unlikely to use the current unrest as a vehicle to turn introspective or vent his rage too loudly at those he once called "thugs."
In 2005, he vowed to clean out young troublemakers from one Paris suburb with a Kärcher, the brand name of a high-powered hose used to wash off graffiti; when he pledged in one suburb that year to rid poor suburban neighborhoods of their "thugs," he was pelted with bottles and rocks.
Ariane Bernard contributed reporting from Paris and Basil Katz from Villiers-le-Bel.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/27/europe/riots.php?page=1
related to this post:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=124489
Riot police in France on alert for firearms
By Katrin Bennhold Published: November 27, 2007
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France: Dodging rocks and projectiles, the police lined the streets of this tense suburb Tuesday where angry youths have vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of two teenagers who died in a collision with a police car.
The town, where rioting flared Sunday night after the accident and escalated Monday night, saw incidents of rock throwing by youths Tuesday but appeared mostly calm in the hours after nightfall. In the neighboring town of Sarcelles, at least one police officer was wounded by a Molotov cocktail. Seven arrests were made after minor skirmishes.
Unrest spread to the southern city of Toulouse, where 10 cars and a library went up in flames, the police said, according to an Associated Press report.
The mood remained tense in the northern suburbs of Paris, however, because of the appearance of shotguns in the hands of a small number of rioters - a rare sight in the last major outbreak of suburban unrest, in 2005.
Police union officials had warned earlier Tuesday that the violence was escalating into urban guerrilla warfare. More than 80 officers have been wounded so far - four of them as a result of gunfire - and the rage was still simmering Tuesday. Inside the City Hall of Villiers-le-Bel, a group of visiting mayors appealed for calm while police officers dodged rocks outside in the afternoon.
"We are sitting targets," said Sophie Bar, a local police officer who stood guard outside City Hall. "They were throwing rocks at us and it was impossible to see where they came from. They just came raining over the roof."
The violence was triggered by the deaths of two teenagers on a motorbike who were killed in a crash with a police car Sunday night. The scene, with angry youths targeting the police mostly with firebombs, rocks and other projectiles, was reminiscent of three weeks of rioting in 2005.
But senior police officials warned that the violence was more intense this time.
"Things have changed since 2005," said Joachim Masanet, secretary general of the police wing of the UNSA trade union. "We have crossed a red line. When these kids aim their guns at police officers, they want to kill them. They are no longer afraid to shoot a policeman. We are only on the second day since the accident, and already they are shooting guns at the police."
Some young men stood by the charred timbers of the town's police station, Tuesday laughing and surveying the damage.
Cem, 18, of Turkish origin, declined to give his name because he feared police reprisals. But he and his friend Karim, of Algerian descent, said they both had participated in rioting over the past two days.
"That's just the beginning," Cem said. "This is a war. There is no mercy. We want two cops dead."
"The police brought this on themselves," Karim added. "They will regret it."
Six officers hurt in the clashes Monday were in serious condition, according to Francis Debuire, a police union official. Four were wounded by gunfire, including one who lost an eye and another who suffered a shattered shoulder.
The biggest risk, the police say, is that the violence will spread. In 2005, unrest cascaded through more than 300 towns, leaving 10,000 cars burned and 4,700 people arrested.
As night fell in Villiers-le-Bel, the anxiety was evident. Strangers warned people to hide their portable telephones because youths were snatching them on the street. People hurried to their homes, while some gathered in knots on street corners. Police helicopters circling public housing developments spotted stockpiles of rocks stacked along the roofs.
Naim Masoud, 39, a teaching assistant in Villiers-le-Bel, said that, in her school, even 8-year-old children talked about racism and discrimination by the police.
"It will take a lot more than riot police to cure this neighborhood," she said. "These children feel like foreigners. It is inexcusable what they are doing, but the seeds are deep."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/27/europe/france.php#end_main
In French suburbs, same rage, but new tactics
By Elaine Sciolino Published: November 27, 2007
PARIS: Two years after France's immigrant suburbs exploded in rage, the rituals and acts of resentment have reappeared with an eerie sameness: roving gangs clashing with riot police forces, the government appealing for calm, residents complaining that they are ignored.
And while the scale of the unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it, in some sense, more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police.
More than 100 officers have been wounded, several of them seriously, according to the police. Thirty were hit with buckshot and pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, Patrice Ribeiro, a police spokesman, said in a telephone interview. One of the officers lost an eye; another's shoulder was shattered by gunfire.
It is legal to own a shotgun in France — as long as the owner has a license — and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youths were procuring more weapons.
"This is a real guerrilla war," Ribeiro told RTL radio, warning that the police, who have struggled to avoid excessive force, will not be fired upon indefinitely without responding.
The police have made more than 30 arrests but have been restrained in controlling the violence, using tear gas to disperse the bands of young people and firing paint balls to identify people for possible arrests later.
The prefecture of the police in the Val d'Oise area, where most of the violence has occurred, said Tuesday night that there were no reported injuries among civilians that could be linked to the police.
The events of the past three days, set off by the deaths of two teenagers whose minibike collided with a police vehicle on Sunday, make clear that the underlying causes of frustration and anger — particularly among unemployed, undereducated youths, mostly the offspring of Arab and African immigrants — remain the same.
"We have heard promise after promise, but nothing has been done in the suburbs since the last riots, nothing," said François Pupponi, the Socialist mayor of Sarcelles, which has been struck by the violence, in an interview. "The suburbs are like tinderboxes. You have people in terrible social circumstances, plus all the rage, plus all the hate, plus all the rumors, and all you need is one spark to set them on fire."
On Tuesday, there were the first signs of the violence spreading beyond the Paris region when a dozen cars were set afire in the southern city of Toulouse.
In the wake of the unrest in 2005, the government of then-President Jacques Chirac (with Nicolas Sarkozy, now the president, as the tough, law-and-order interior minister) announced measures to improve life in the suburbs, including extra money for housing, schools and neighborhood associations, as well as counseling and job training for unemployed youths. None has gone very far.
At that time, Sarkozy alienated large numbers of inhabitants in the troubled ethnic pockets of France, but afterward reverted to a low-key approach, which he has maintained ever since. During his presidential campaign, he stayed away from the troubled suburbs, aware that his presence could inflame public opinion against him.
In his six months as president, he has largely focused on injecting new life into France's flaccid economy through creating jobs and lowering taxes and consumer prices.
His most notable initiative in dealing with youth crime has been punitive: the passage of a law last July that required a minimum sentence for repeat offenders and in many cases allowed minors between 16 and 18 years old to be tried and sentenced as adults.
Since September, Fadela Amara, his outspoken junior minister charged with drawing up a policy for the suburbs, has been holding town hall meetings throughout France in preparation for what is to be a "Marshall Plan" for the suburbs. Her proposals are scheduled to be made public in January.
"We've been talking about a Marshall Plan for the suburbs since the early 1990s," said Adil Jazouli, a sociologist who focuses on the suburbs. "We don't need poetry. We don't need reflection. We need money."
After he returns from China on Wednesday morning, Sarkozy plans to visit a seriously wounded senior policeman at a hospital near the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel.
It was in Villiers-le-Bel on Sunday afternoon that the deaths of two teenagers identified as Moushin, 15, and Larimi, 16, occurred, the event that set off the latest unrest. The teenagers were riding without helmets on a minibike that collided with a police car; rumors that the police had caused the accident elicited calls for revenge.
The crash was reminiscent of the electrocution deaths in another Paris suburb in October 2005 of two teenagers, who, according to some accounts, were running away from police. That event set off the worst civil unrest in France in four decades, plunging the country into what Chirac called "a profound malaise."
But Sarkozy, still reeling from huge transit strikes and student protests throughout France this month, is unlikely to use the current unrest as a vehicle to turn introspective or vent his rage too loudly at those he once called "scum."
In 2005, he vowed to clean out young troublemakers from one Paris suburb with a Kärcher, the brand name of a high-powered hose used to wash off graffiti; when he pledged in another suburb that year to rid poor suburban neighborhoods of their "scum," he was pelted with bottles and rocks.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister François Fillon told Parliament that the clashes were "unacceptable, intolerable, incomprehensible," and he pledged punishment for the offenders in the affected suburbs.
"Those who shoot at policemen, those who beat a police officer almost to death, are criminals and must be treated as such," he said, adding, "We will do everything so that tonight there is a maximum security presence."
Under heavy security on Tuesday night, Fillon visited Villiers-le-Bel, where the two youths had died, in what he called a show of support for the police and firefighters. About 1,000 police officers were deployed there.
Critics of the Sarkozy government complain that many areas in the suburbs are without a police presence, and that the only time there is a show of security is after violence erupts.
"Sarkozy promised to send more police to the suburbs, but in so many places there are fewer police than there were two years ago," said Mohamed Hamidi, the French founder of Bondy Blog, a popular political blog created in the Paris suburb of Bondy after the outbreak of violence in 2005. "He didn't keep his word. Who suffers from all the violence and the burning cars? The people who live in these neighborhoods."
In Villiers-le-Bel on Tuesday night, the atmosphere was tense, with white police trucks and antiriot police officers on the streets. Earlier in the day, about 300 people, including children, marched silently in memory of the two dead teenagers.
At a bakery on a small plaza in town, Habib Friaa, the baker, mourned their deaths, especially that of Larimi, who had started an apprenticeship with him two months ago.
"Baking was his passion," Friaa said. "He was a courageous young man, someone who had hope."
Ariane Bernard contributed reporting from Paris, and Basil Katz from Villiers-le-Bel.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/28/europe/28france.php?page=1
Paris suburb riots called 'a lot worse' than in 2005
News Analysis
By Elaine Sciolino Published: November 27, 2007
PARIS: The rituals and acts of rage have an eerie sameness to them: roving gangs of angry youths clashing with the riot police in France's edgy suburbs, the government appealing for calm, local officials and residents complaining that their problems are ignored.
Two years after an orgy of violence in which rioters in more than 300 suburbs and towns torched cars, trashed businesses and ambushed the riot police and firefighters, Villiers-le-Bel and several nearby suburbs of Paris similarly have erupted in violence and destruction.
In one sense, the unrest seems to be more menacing than during the early days of the three weeks of rioting in 2005. Then, the youth seemed disorganized, their destruction largely caused by rock-throwing and arson and aimed at the closest and easiest targets, like cars. This time, hunting shotguns, as well as gasoline bombs and rocks, have been turned on the police.
"From what our colleagues on the scene tell us, this is a situation that is a lot worse than what we saw in 2005," Patrice Ribeiro, a police officer and senior union official, told RTL radio Tuesday. He added, "A line was crossed last night, that is to say, they used weapons, they used weapons and fired on the police. This is a real guerrilla war."
Ribeiro warned that the police, who have struggled to avoid excessive force, would not be fired upon indefinitely without responding.
More than 80 police officers already have been wounded the clashes, several of them seriously, Ribeiro said later by telephone. Thirty of them were hit with pellets from shotguns, and one of the wounded was hit with a type of bullet used to kill large game, he added. It is legal to own a shotgun in France - as long as the owner has a license - and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youth were procuring more shotguns.
It is impossible to predict whether the violence will continue and spread to the much larger cluster of Parisian suburbs around the town of Seine-Saint-Denis, the area where violence was concentrated in 2005, or to the rest of the country.
But the events of the past three days make clear that the underlying causes of frustration and anger - particularly among unemployed, undereducated youth, mostly the offspring of Arab and African immigrants - remain the same.
"We have heard promise after promise, but nothing has been done in the suburbs since the last riots, nothing," said François Pupponi, the Socialist mayor of Sarcelles, which has been struck by violence. "The suburbs are like tinderboxes. You have people in terrible social circumstances, plus all the rage, plus all the hate, plus all the rumors and all you need is one spark to set them on fire."
Indeed, after the unrest in 2005, the government of then-President Jacques Chirac - with Nicolas Sarkozy, now president, as the tough law-and-order interior minister - announced measures to improve life in the suburbs, including extra money for housing, schools and neighborhood associations and counseling and job training for unemployed youths. None has gone very far.
At that time, Sarkozy alienated a huge swath of inhabitants in the troubled ethnic pockets of France, but afterward reverted to a low-key approach, which he has maintained ever since. During his presidential campaign, he stayed away from France's suburbs, aware that his presence would only inflame public opinion against him.
In his six months as president, he largely has focused on injecting new life into France's flaccid economy through job creation and lowering taxes and consumer prices. His most notable initiative in dealing with youth crime has been punitive: the passage of a law last July that required a minimum sentence for repeat offenders and in many cases allowed minors between 16 and 18 years of age to be tried and sentenced as adults.
Since September, Fadela Amara, his outspoken junior minister who has been given the task of drawing up a policy for the suburbs, has been holding town hall meetings throughout France in preparation for what is to be a "Marshall Plan" for the suburbs. Her proposals are scheduled to be unveiled in January.
"We've been talking about a Marshall Plan for the suburbs since the early 1990s," said Adil Jazouli, a sociologist who focuses on the suburbs. "We don't need poetry. We don't need reflection. We need money."
After he returns home from China, Sarkozy on Wednesday plans to visit a seriously wounded senior police officers at a hospital near the northern Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel.
It was there that on Sunday afternoon the deaths of two teenagers identified as Moushin, 15, and Larimi, 16, occurred, the event that sparked the latest unrest. The teenagers were riding without helmets in a mini-motorbike that crashed into a police car on Sunday.
The accident was reminiscent of the electrocution deaths of two teenagers in another Paris suburb in October 2005, who, according to some accounts, were running away from the police. That event triggered the worst civil unrest in France in four decades.
But Sarkozy, still reeling from massive transit strikes and student protests this month throughout France, is unlikely to use the current unrest as a vehicle to turn introspective or vent his rage too loudly at those he once called "thugs."
In 2005, he vowed to clean out young troublemakers from one Paris suburb with a Kärcher, the brand name of a high-powered hose used to wash off graffiti; when he pledged in one suburb that year to rid poor suburban neighborhoods of their "thugs," he was pelted with bottles and rocks.
Ariane Bernard contributed reporting from Paris and Basil Katz from Villiers-le-Bel.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/27/europe/riots.php?page=1
related to this post:
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=124489