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Chirac pledges help for Muslims
as local curfews reduce violence
Paris, 10 November 2005: After nearly two weeks of unrest in France, the number of violent incidents has begun dropping. French authorities believe a new law allowing local mayors to declare curfews may be having an effect. Meanwhile, French President Jacques Chirac said his top priority was ending the two-week-old wave of urban unrest, as he pledged to address the root causes of the violence.

The French leader told a Paris news conference Thursday, 10 November, the government will have to respond to problems in largely Muslim-inhabited working class suburbs, which have experienced most of the rioting.

On Thursday, 10 November, French authorities reported a dramatic drop in the nightly toll of violence that began in late October. The numbers of cars torched and towns affected by the unrest has dropped by two-thirds from previous statistics.

The drop coincides with the reinstatement of a 1955 law allowing local mayors to impose curfews. A number of municipalities immediately took advantage of the legislation, including the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois where the accidental death of two ethnic-African youths fleeing police unleashed the nationwide unrest.

Angry roving gangs of youths have torched thousands of cars, and set schools, churches, and municipal buildings alight in what has turned into France's worst social crisis in decades. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said foreigners who participated in the riots would be expelled from the country.

Speaking to the French national Assembly Wednesday, Mr. Sarkozy said he had asked France's regional prefects, or heads, to carry out his expulsion orders without delay - including those who had legal papers.

A poll published in Le Parisien newspaper found nearly two-thirds of French citizens approved of reinstating the temporary emergency decree for curfews.

A number of opposition politicians have criticized the curfews for being overly repressive. The curfews are only one of a series of measures announced by French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to restore calm and order in France. The French prime minister has also announced plans to promote education and job training opportunities in the country's housing projects and other low-income areas to give youths living there a better chance to succeed. (Report by VOA)

French President vows tough
actions as rioting continues
Paris, 7 November 2005: Policemen were injured, hundreds of cars were burned and buildings torched Sunday, 6 November, at the start of a 10th-straight night of violence in France. French President Jacques Chirac has promised trials and punishment for the perpetrators. Speaking after meeting with members of his cabinet Sunday, President Chirac said restoring security and public order would be the government's top priority after 10 days of violence. The unrest began after the accidental electrocution of two youths of African origin in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The two apparently thought they were fleeing police.

In recent days, nightly rampages by youths of largely ethnic-immigrant origin have spread beyond low-income suburban housing projects around Paris to other parts of France. Many analysts say decades of poverty, misery and alienation experienced by those living in these gritty public housing blocks is finally boiling over.

Sunday afternoon, a bus was set afire in Saint-Etienne, in the south, and at least 10 police were injured, two seriously, in Grigny in the Essonne region south of the capital. The violence spread from the suburbs of Paris to the city Saturday night. But in interviews around Paris, Sunday, most people did not appear afraid.

One young man, who only gave his first name, Olivier, said he didn't really care about the violence, so long as the rioters didn't burn his car. Olivier said the unrest wasn't about integration of foreigners and ethnic immigrants. Those who are rioting are French, he says. They just want to heat things up. Parisian Magdalene de Jorojy agreed that the unrest wasn't about integration. "The real problem, Ms. Jorojy said, was poverty and misery that prevail in the French housing projects and must be addressed. (Report by Lisa Bryant, VOA)

Ethnic riots in France
spread beyond capital
Paris, 6 November 2005: The wave of unrest that has engulfed the working-class suburbs around Paris has now spread beyond the French capital. For the first time, other cities with large immigrant populations reported violent incidents. French authorities said that nearly 900 vehicles were burned and that more than 200 people had been detained. A number of buildings were also set afire in the Paris area, including a pre-school, a middle school and a supermarket.

That is the latest tally of nightly violence that started more than a week ago, when two African teenagers, apparently believing police were after them, hid in a power station and were accidentally electrocuted. Police say they were not chasing the boys.

That incident has sparked clashes between police and youths of ethnic-immigrant origin in the gritty housing projects and suburbs around Paris. On Friday (4 November) night, several other large cities in France, including Strasbourg, Rennes and Toulouse also reported violent incidents.

Meanwhile, Marc Gautron, a top police official in France, told reporters Saturday that the tactics of those perpetrating the violence have changed. Mr. Gautron said the rioters did not appear to be seeking direct confrontation with police. Instead, they were setting fires and running away before police arrive. That's one reason, he said, why more of them have not been detained.

The riots have exposed long-standing problems in France's immigrant-heavy suburbs, where unemployment and poverty are far higher than elsewhere in the country. Many of the rioters are young ethnic second-generation immigrants with French nationality who feel excluded in their own country.

Late Friday, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met with 15 youths from the Paris suburbs where the violence has occurred to look at ways to restore calm. The violence has sparked calls by opposition leftist politicians for France's law-and-order interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, to resign. Socialist Party leaders also wrote a letter to France's center-right government, saying it bore part of the responsibility for the crisis. (Report by Lisa Bryant, VOA)

Urban riots continue in France
despite heavy police presence
Paris, 5 November 2005: French authorities responded with heavy police presence to several new arson attacks late Friday (4 November) as rioting continued for the ninth straight night in the suburbs of Paris. Dozens of vehicles and buildings were set on fire in suburbs north of the city as groups of young rioters, mostly of North African origin, harassed police and fire fighters. Similar incidents were reported elsewhere in France for the second night.

The latest outbreaks came despite the presence of more than one thousand police officers in the Paris suburbs. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met with youths from those areas earlier Friday to discuss the crisis. Meanwhile French Interior Minister has been criticised Nicolas Sarkozy for his inflammatory language and his policies during his first stint as Interior Minister, when he decided to removed police from front-line duties to investigative desk jobs. According to local government officials in some of the satellite towns surrounding Paris, the closure of local police stations left many of the communities unprepared for the riots.

Many of the rioters say the French government has a racial bias and treats them as second-class citizens. The violence started last week when two North African teenagers hid from police at a power station and were accidentally electrocuted. (Source: VOA News)

France fears violence may
spread to other big cities
Paris, 4 November 2005: After a week of violence in suburbs around Paris, some French authorities now fear the unrest may spread to other parts of France. There are also reports that organized gangs may be profiting from the turmoil. There were no reports of major clashes between French police and youths during the latest round of violence Thursday night. But some 600 vehicles were torched in the suburbs surrounding Paris. More worrying, perhaps, police reported these arson attacks are spreading beyond the original Seine-Saint-Denis area near Paris, where the violence originated last week.

In remarks to reporters Friday, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy did not rule out the possibility that organized gangs may be fuelling the violence, originally started by individual immigrant youths.

Mr. Sarkozy said officials were struck by a large amount of organisation behind the riots in the Seine-Saint Denis region where they began last week. He commented this did not appear to be spontaneous. The near nightly riots were originally touched off after the accidental electrocution of two young men who thought they were fleeing French police.

Recently, some police and analysts have suggested that organized gangs and even radical Islamist groups may be profiting from the situation. But French immigration expert, Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, is not so sure that radical Islam is fuelling these rampaging youths. Ms. de Wenden is research director at the Center for International Studies and Research in Paris.

"I think most of these youths aren't practicing their religion strongly," said Catherine Wihtol de Wenden. "The rate of participation to various duties of Islam is very low - like with other religions in France - between 8 and 10 per cent. But in some cases, there can be some identity feelings of community. Especially if they feel there is racism toward them or discrimination. But I think there is no link between Islam and violence.

So far, Ms. de Wenden notes, the violence has not spread to other major cities in France like Toulouse, Marseille or Lyon. All of these municipalities are also struggling with restive, immigrant-heavy housing projects, like those that exploded into violence around Paris. Imams and other community leaders have been trying to calm things down. But experts like Ms. Wenden say their effectiveness has been spotty. And after a week of unrest, nobody seems quite sure just how, and when, the violence will end. (Report by Lisa Bryant, VOA)

French President intervenes after
Minister called Paris rioters scum
Paris, 3 November 2005: French President Jacques Chirac appealed for calm Wednesday (2 November) following six straight nights of rioting in the low-income suburbs around Paris. The clashes began after two teenage boys were accidentally electrocuted Thursday, 27 October, as they tried to scale a wall in the gritty Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. A public prosecutor said the boys thought they were being chased by police. Police denied they had been pursuing them.

Either way, the incident has triggered nightly riots between largely ethnic-Muslim youths and police. The unrest has spread to other low-income housing projects around Paris, which have large, ethnic-North African Muslim communities.

France's Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has responded with a firmness that has sparked criticism from both the leftist opposition and from members of his own centre-right party. In particular, Mr. Sarkozy used the word scum to describe the rioters, and this has been particularly controversial.

Francois Hollande, who leads the opposition Socialist Party, told reporters Wednesday that such remarks were inappropriate. Mr. Holland said that Mr. Sarkozy should not have stigmatized an entire population of ethnic immigrants with his slights.

The Mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, Claude Dilain, called on the Mr Sarkozy to set without delay up a judiciary enquiry into the accident. “We owe it to the families of the dead teenagers and to everyone in Clichy to find the truth of what happened,” the Mayor said.

Now the French government is striking a more conciliatory tone. After remaining silent for almost a week, President Chirac called for firmness in dealing with the rioters, but also for dialogue and respect. He also demanded an inquiry into the Thursday deaths for the two youths.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, a political rival of Mr. Sarkozy, echoed a similar message of justice and firmness. He promised concrete responses to unemployment and other problems facing communities like Clichy-sous-Bois in the coming weeks.

But experts like Dominique Sopo, head of the anti-discrimination group SOS Racism, says words are not enough. What's needed Mr. Sopo says, are better programmes to integrate second and third-generation ethnic immigrant youths into mainstream French society. Mr. Sopo and other analysts also fear the current violence may lead to greater popular support for the far-right National Front party. (Report by Lisa Bryant, VOA)