France's government faced mounting pressure yesterday as suburban unrest took on dangerous new momentum, with shots fired at police and fire crews as they battled youths who torched car dealerships, public buses and a school.
Four shots were fired at police and fire officers in four different towns, without causing any injuries, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official for the troubled Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris where the week of violence has been concentrated.
Rioters set fire to 315 cars in the Paris area overnight, half of them in Seine-Saint-Denis, where nine people were injured, officials said.
The heavy presence of armed riot police did little to deter violence as youths rampaged for a seventh straight night. Acts ranging from clashes with police to torching of vehicles were reported in at least 10 Paris-region towns.
The riots have highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor suburbs. Frustrations have been simmering in housing projects to the north and northeast of Paris, heavily populated by North African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children who struggle with high unemployment, crime, poverty and a lack of opportunities.
In the tough northeastern suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, gangs of youths torched a Renault car dealership and incinerated at least a dozen cars, a supermarket and a local gymnasium.
In nearby La Courneuve, two shots were fired at riot police, said Cordet. A third shot targeted firefighters in Noisy-le-Sec, and a forth was aimed at a fire crew in Saint-Denis, home to the Stade de France stadium that hosted the final of the 1998 soccer World Cup.
Bands of youths forced a team of France-2 television reporters out of their car in the suburb of Le Blanc Mesnil, then flipped the vehicle and set it on fire.
Unrest spilled over to public housing projects in the area, where police engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with youths, who would break car windows and toss petrol-bombs inside before running away.
Police in the Seine-Saint-Denis region detained 23 rioters on Wednesday night and have taken a total of 98 people into custody since the rioting started, Cordet said.
France's government was in crisis mode, with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin calling a string of emergency meetings with government officials throughout the day yesterday.
One was a working lunch with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been accused of inflaming the crisis with his tough talk and police tactics. Sarkozy has called troublemakers "scum" and vowed to "clean out" troubled suburbs, language that some say further alienated their residents.
Minister of Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had to react "firmly" but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to have dealt with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades.
RSS