French New Year fizz diluted by fears of more urban violence

DPA , PARIS
Saturday, Dec 31, 2005, Page 9

In a clear sign of how nervous the French are about today's New Year's Eve celebrations, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is rushing home from his Christmas holiday to be on hand to oversee police security for the celebrations.

France become afraid of its suburban ghettos, and fears are particularly heightened over the possibility of a violent flare-up during the last night of the year.

Car-burning minority youths in certain suburban housing estates has become a New Year's Eve tradition in France -- last year 330 vehicles went up in flames -- but they have generally been regarded as acts of a small segment of young delinquents letting off a little steam.

This view no longer stands, however, since the riots that swept through the suburban ghettos of nearly 300 French cities and towns for three weeks during late October and early last month.

Some vehicles and 200 buildings were torched during the unrest and more than 4,700 youths -- the great majority of them children of North- or Sub-Saharan African immigrants -- were taken into custody.

The riots, set off by the accidental deaths by electrocution of two teenagers hiding out in a power sub-station because they believed they were being pursued by police, sparked a long-simmering powder keg of anger and frustration built up during years of racism and unequal treatment in the areas of education, housing and employment.

A state of emergency imposed by the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to quell the rioting was extended until mid-February precisely because of fears that today and tomorrow's New Year celebrations could serve as a pretext for another outbreak of rioting.

Also, according to reports in the Paris-based English-language International Herald Tribune, nothing the government has said or done since the riots that ended on Nov. 17 has eased tensions in the ghettos.

In fact, some of Villepin's promises to ameliorate conditions in the ghettos have not yet been kept, despite the urgency of the situation.

Marilou Jampolsky, a spokeswoman for the human rights organization SOS Racisme, told the Tribune that government funds stripped from her association by the previous center-right government had not yet been restored, despite Villepin's vow to do so.

A man named Mehdi who works for an NGO for disadvantaged youths in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots started, said that his organization had not seen any of the new funds promised by the government.

"The faster some of the promises are transformed into action the better," Mehdi told the newspaper. "We are taking the temperature of the people every day. They are waiting for changes that they feel in everyday life ... and they are waiting for justice for the two dead teenagers."

The deaths of the two youths, aged 15 and 17, remains a sore point in the ghettos around Paris, since one of the complaints voiced most frequently during the riots was what minority youths have described as almost daily harassment by police officers.

A teenager who had been with the two victims and survived the accident with bad burns has maintained that he and his friends were in fact pursued by police officers, even though they had not committed any crime.

This claim has been denied by police and by Interior Minister Sarkozy, who promised a speedy report on the incident. However, nearly two months after the event, no report has yet been made public, raising suspicions that the police and the Interior Ministry may be stonewalling.

Security have been beefed up throughout the country to respond to the threat of violence and to help ease the fears of the French public.

In Paris, where more than 500,000 people are expected to ring in the New Year on the Champs Elysees, the Eiffel Tower and other public venues, a contingent of 4,500 police officers will be deployed, with "instructions to be firm [to] discourage and repress all acts of violence," the capital's police headquarters said.

In addition, public transport in the greater Paris area will be under surveillance to follow the movement of groups deemed suspicious. Similar precautions have been taken in many French cities affected by the November riots.

A ban on the sale of gasoline in jerrycans, imposed during the riots, remains in place in many communities, as does the state of emergency, which enables local authorities to impose curfews and gives police special powers to search and detain suspects.

Despite increased security measures, however, there will be nervous New Year celebrations in France.

As a jobless youth of Mauritanian descent said, "The rage in the suburbs is only asleep. It wouldn't take much to wake it up again."