2005-11-07,+Violence+sweeps+France

= Violence sweeps France in 10th night of riots =

Alex Duval Smith in Paris and David Smith The Observer, London, Sunday November 6, 2005

France was reeling from a 10th night of violence yesterday as rioting swept from the suburbs of Paris to become a nationwide crisis.

In towns and cities across the country, youths armed with gasoline bombs torched scores of vehicles, nursery schools and other targets. Police said that at least 607 vehicles were set alight, with more than half outside the Paris region.

The Foreign Office yesterday warned British tourists to 'exercise extreme care in the affected areas'.

The mayhem came in direct defiance of a warning from Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy that rioters faced stiff punishments. He said setting cars on fire could 'cost dear in terms of sentences' and that the government was 'unanimous' about standing firm against violence, which many are describing as France's worst civil unrest since the 1968 student revolts.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was yesterday forced to call a crisis meeting of his ministers and a top Muslim official as the rioting continued to spread.

Last night five classrooms at the Sleeping Beauty Nursery School in Grigny, in the Essonne region south of Paris, went up in flames as well as two classrooms at another school.

In a measure of public dissatisfaction with the government, Yvan Lemaitre, the parent of one of the pupils at the Sleeping Beauty school, told French radio: 'Burning a school is unacceptable but the man who lit the fire is Sarkozy.'

By 1am this morning, at least 607 vehicles were burned - 13 of them inside Paris. The overall figures were expected to climb by daybreak.

The troubles threatened to spiral out of control as arson attacks were reported in cities to the north, south, east and west, many known for their calm, like the cultural bastion of Avignon in southern France and the resort cities of Nice and Cannes, where cars were torched.

In the Normandy town of Evreux, arson attacks laid waste to at least 50 vehicles, part of a shopping centre, a post office and two schools, said Patrick Hamon, spokesman for the national police.

He added that five police officers and three firefighters were injured battling the blazes.

Arson was also reported in Nantes, in the south west, in Lille and Rennes in the north and Saint-Dizier, in the Ardennes region east of Paris. In the eastern city of Strasbourg, 18 cars were set alight in full daylight, police said. In Toulouse, there were 30 arson attacks.

Some 2,300 police were being brought into the Paris region to bolster security. In the Essonne area south of the city, a recycling factory was set on fire and at least 35 vehicles torched.

Twenty-eight cars were torched in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, north east of Paris, where the riots erupted after two teenage boys were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police, apparently thinking they were being pursued. French authorities have denied that police were to blame.

France-Info radio reported residents catching two 14-year-olds trying to light a fire in Drancy, north-east of Paris, and turning them over to police.

Even in the heart of Paris three cars were damaged by fire in the Republique section, north east of City Hall.

Meanwhile, earlier yesterday, hundreds of people joined marches in Paris suburbs to protest against the violence. In Aulnay-sous-Bois, which has seen some of the worst of the rioting, residents walked past burnt-out vehicles and buildings with banners reading 'No to violence' and 'Yes to dialogue'.

De Villepin called the emergency cabinet meeting to attempt to regain the momentum and show a united front. He called on ministers to speed up plans for urban renewal and asked the influential imam of the Paris mosque, Dalil Boubakeur, to appeal for calm.

But it was Sarkozy who again came in for attack. After his meeting with De Villepin, Boubakeur launched a veiled attack on the minister's outbursts, in which he called the disaffected young men on estates 'louts'.

Police trade union official Gilles Petit said the rioters would 'stop at nothing' in their attacks.

From: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1635454,00.html