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| Tensions Smoulder After Riots Near Paris | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 2 2005, 06:02 PM (132 Views) | |
| abuturab82 | Nov 2 2005, 06:02 PM Post #1 |
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Tensions Smoulder After Riots Near Paris http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...5387985,00.html Wednesday November 2, 2005 9:31 PM AP Photo BRI101 By JOCELYN GECKER Associated Press Writer CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France (AP) - Menacing youths smoked cigarettes in doorways Wednesday and hulks of burned cars littered the tough streets of Paris' northeastern suburbs beset by a week of rioting that left residents on edge and the president appealing for a firm but respectful response by police. Leaders at Clichy-sous-Bois' mosque prayed for peace and asked parents to keep teenagers off the streets after violence broke out last week following the accidental deaths of two youths. They were electrocuted while hiding in a power substation because they believed police were chasing them. The unrest spread to at least nine Paris-region towns overnight Tuesday, exposing the despair, anger and criminality in France's poor suburbs - fertile terrain for Islamic extremists, drug dealers and racketeers. The violence, concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalized and restive, cut off from the continent's prosperity and, for some extremists, its values, too. ``They have no work. They have nothing to do. Put yourself in their place,'' said Abderrahmane Bouhout, president of the Clichy-sous-Bois mosque, where a tear gas grenade exploded Sunday evening. Local youths suspected a police attack, and authorities are investigating. The violence cast doubt on the success of France's model of seeking to integrate its large immigrant community - its Muslim population, at an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest - by playing down differences between ethnic groups. But rather than be embraced as full and equal citizens, immigrants and their French-born children often complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities. Eric, a 22-year-old in Clichy-sous-Bois who was born in France to Moroccan parents, said police target those with dark skin. He said he has been unable to find full-time work for two years and that the riots were a demonstration of suburban solidarity. ``People are joining together to say we've had enough,'' he said. He refused to give his surname because talking to reporters was poorly regarded in his neighborhood. ``We live in ghettos,'' he added. ``Everyone lives in fear.'' Many immigrant families are trapped in housing projects built to accommodate foreign laborers welcomed by post-World War II France, but which have since succumbed to despair, chronic unemployment and lawlessness. In some neighborhoods, drug dealers and racketeers hold sway and experts say Islamic radicals seek to recruit disenchanted youths by telling them that France has abandoned them. ``French society is in a bad state ... increasingly unequal, increasingly segregated, and increasingly divided along ethnic and racial lines,'' said sociologist Manuel Boucher. Some youths turn to Islam to claim an identity that is not French, ``to seize on something which gives them back their individual and collective dignity.'' French governments have injected funds and job-creation schemes for years but failed to cure ills in suburbs where car-burnings and other crimes are daily facts of life. ``No matter what the politicians say, some neighborhoods are all but lost,'' said Patrice Ribeiro, national secretary of the Synergie police officers' union. ``Police patrols pass through but without stopping and with their windows rolled up.'' Claude Dilain, a Socialist and mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, said that when youths experience social injustice every day, ``it is very difficult to have them listen to reason and ask them to respect the laws.'' Police said 180 vehicles were torched overnight, most of them in the Seine-Saint-Denis region that includes Clichy, Aulnay and other violence-hit neighborhoods. Police made 35 arrests in Seine-Saint-Denis. Youths lobbed Molotov ****tails near Aulnay's town hall and threw stones at the firehouse. In nearby Bondy, a blaze engulfed a store. Officials said police were harassed by ``small, very mobile gangs.'' Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy both canceled foreign trips to deal with the unrest. Sarkozy is under fire for his tough talk, calling troublemakers ``scum'' and vowing to ``clean out'' troubled suburbs. President Jacques Chirac told a weekly Cabinet meeting that ``the law must be applied firmly'' but ``in a spirit of dialogue and respect'' to prevent ``a dangerous situation'' from developing. Chirac acknowledged the ``profound frustrations'' of troubled neighborhoods but said violence is not the answer and that efforts must be stepped up to combat it. ``Zones without law cannot exist in the republic,'' he said. In Aulnay-sous-Bois, another northeastern suburb where riot police fired rubber bullets at advancing gangs of youths Tuesday night, workers cleaned up charred debris Wednesday. A group of teenagers chased and threw stones at Associated Press reporters, some shouting ``Go home!'' and others yelling: ``See you tonight.'' ``I am afraid. I have children,'' said Aulnay resident Houcine Yahiaoui, who watched the violence from his windows. ``I have never seen anything like this here.'' --- Associated Press writers John Leicester, Christine Ollivier and Joelle Diderich in Paris contributed to this report. |
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| abuturab82 | Nov 5 2005, 02:09 AM Post #2 |
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Rioting Spreads Beyond Paris Suburbs http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...5394043,00.html Saturday November 5, 2005 3:46 AM AP Photo PAR107 By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press Writer AUBERVILLIERS, France (AP) - Marauding youths set fire to cars and warehouses and pelted rescuers with rocks early Saturday, as the worst rioting in a decade spread from Paris to other French cities. The U.S. warned Americans against taking trains to the airport via strife-torn areas. A savage assault on a bus passenger highlighted the dangers of travel in Paris' impoverished outlying neighborhoods, where the violence has entered its second week. Attackers doused the woman, in her 50s and on crutches, with an inflammable liquid and set her afire as she tried to get off a bus in the suburb of Sevran Wednesday, judicial officials said. The bus had been forced to stop because of burning objects in its path. She was rescued by the driver and hospitalized with severe burns. Justice Minister Pascal Clement deplored the incident, saying it caused him ``great emotion.'' Rioters burned more than 500 vehicles Friday as the unrest grew beyond the French capital for the first time. Unrest returned to the streets in the evening and early Saturday, the ninth night in a row. Police said troublemakers fired bullets into a vandalized bus and burned 85 more cars in Paris and Suresnes, just to the west. In Meaux, east of Paris, officials said youths stoned rescuers aiding someone who had fallen ill. Meanwhile, warehouses in Suresnes and Aubervilliers, on the northern edge of Paris, were set ablaze. Officials said other fires raged outside the capital in Lille, Toulouse, and Rouen, while an incendiary device was tossed at the wall outside a synagogue in Pierrefitte, northwest of Paris. Some 30 mayors from the Seine-Saint-Denis region where the unrest started Oct. 27 met Friday to make a joint call for calm. Claude Pernes, mayor of Rosny-sous-Bois, denounced a ``veritable guerrilla situation, urban insurrection'' that has taken hold. A national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said there appeared to be no coordination among gangs in different areas. But he said youths in individual neighborhoods were communicating by cell phone text messages or e-mails - arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations. The violence started Oct. 27 after the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who believed police were chasing them in the Seine-Saint-Denis region, dominated by low-income housing projects. Since then riots have swelled into a broader challenge against the French state and its security forces. The violence has exposed deep discontent in neighborhoods where African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children are trapped by poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, crime, poor education and housing. During the day Friday, the burned remains of at least 520 cars littered Parisian streets, an increase from previous nights. Five police officers were lightly injured by youths throwing stones or bottles, the Interior Ministry said. At a depot in Trappes, to the southwest, 27 buses were incinerated, officials said. The commuter train line linking Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport ran limited service Friday after two trains were targeted Wednesday night. The U.S. Embassy called the protests ``extremely violent'' and warned travelers against taking trains to the airport because they pass through the troubled area. Russia, meanwhile, warned citizens against visiting the suburbs. The Foreign Ministry said it was concerned that foreign media coverage was exaggerating the situation. ``I don't have the feeling that foreign tourists in Paris are in any way placed in danger by these events,'' ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said, adding that officials were ``sometimes a bit surprised'' by the foreign coverage. Still, the violence has alarmed the government of President Jacques Chirac, whose calls for calm have gone unheeded. ``This is the first time (suburban violence) has lasted so long and the government appears taken aback at the magnitude,'' said Pascal Perrineau, director of the Center for Study of French Political Life. There were ``few direct clashes'' with security forces late Thursday and early Friday, however, no bullets fired at police, and far fewer large groups of rioters, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official in Seine-Saint-Denis. Instead, Cordet said, the unrest in Seine-Saint-Denis was led by ``numerous small and highly mobile groups'' that burned 187 vehicles and five buildings, including three warehouses. The unrest erupted with youths angered over the deaths of Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, who were electrocuted when they hid in a power substation in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. Traore's brother, Siyakah Traore, called for protesters to ``calm down and stop ransacking everything.'' ``This is not how we are going to have our voices heard,'' he told RTL radio, adding his voice to neighborhood groups working to stop the violence. Dozens of residents and community leaders were stepping in to defuse tensions, with some walking between rioters and police to urge youths to back down. Abderrhamane Bouhout, head of the Bilal mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois, said he had enlisted 50 youths to try stop the violence. ``We've had positive results,'' he said. --- Associated Press writers Scheherezade Faramarzi and Cecile Brisson in Paris contributed to this report. |
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| abuturab82 | Nov 7 2005, 04:43 PM Post #3 |
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...5398694,00.html Rioting in France Spreads to 300 Towns Monday November 7, 2005 6:31 PM AP Photo PAR102 By ANGELA DOLAND Associated Press Writer PARIS (AP) - Rioting by French youths spread to 300 towns overnight and a 61-year-old man hurt in the violence died of his wounds, the first fatality in 11 days of unrest that has shocked the country, police said Monday. As urban unrest was reported in neighboring Belgium and Germany, the French government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence, despite massive police deployment and continued calls for calm. One riot-hit town in suburban Paris said it was preparing to enforce a curfew. Meanwhile, governments worldwide urged their citizens to be careful in France. President Jacques Chirac, in private comments more conciliatory than his warnings Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, acknowledged that France has failed to integrate the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants in poor suburbs who have been participating in the violence, according to Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who met with the French leader on Monday. She said Chirac ``deplored the fact that in these neighborhoods there is a ghettoization of youths of African or North African origin'' and recognized ``the incapacity of French society to fully accept them.'' Chirac said unemployment runs as high as 40 percent in some suburban neighborhoods, four times the national rate of just under 10 percent, Vike-Freiberga said. On Sunday night, vandals burned more than 1,400 vehicles, and clashes around the country left 36 police injured, setting a new high for overnight arson and violence since rioting started last month, national police chief Michel Gaudin told a news conference. Attacks overnight Sunday to Monday were reported in 274 towns and police made 395 arrests, Gaudin said. The Justice Ministry said Monday that 27 people had been convicted in fast-track trials since the beginning of the unrest. Australia, Britain, Germany and Japan advised their citizens to exercise care in France, joining the United States, Russia and at least a half dozen other countries in warning tourists to stay away from violence-hit areas. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy sought to reassure his European counterparts about visiting his country, telling them at a meeting in Brussels that ``France is not a dangerous country. France is still a country where one can go.'' The victim was identified as Jean-Jacques Le Chenadec, a retired auto industry worker who died after being beaten by an attacker. He was trying to extinguish a trash can fire Friday at his housing project in the northeastern suburb of Stains when an attacker caught him by surprise and beat him into a coma, police said. In the Paris suburban town of Raincy, the mayor was preparing to enact a nighttime curfew expected to go into force Monday or Tuesday, said one of his top aides. Apparent copycat attacks spread outside France for the first time, with five cars torched outside Brussels' main train station, police in the Belgian capital said. German police were investigating whether the overnight burning of five cars early Monday in Moabit, a Berlin neighborhood with a large Turkish immigrant population, was a copycat crime. The mayhem started as an outburst of anger in suburban Paris housing projects and has fanned out nationwide among disaffected youths, mostly of Muslim or African origin, to become France's worst civil unrest in more than a decade. ``This spread, with a sort of shock wave spreading across the country, shows up in the number of towns affected,'' Gaudin said, noting that the violence appeared to be sliding away from its flash point in the Parisian suburbs and worsening elsewhere. It was the first time police had been injured by weapons' fire and there were signs that rioters were deliberately seeking out clashes with police, officials said. Among the injured police, 10 were hurt by youths firing fine-grain birdshot in a late-night clash in the southern Paris suburb of Grigny, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. Two were hospitalized, but the injuries were not considered life-threatening. One was wounded in the neck, the other in the legs. The unrest began Oct. 27 in the low-income Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after the deaths of two teenagers of Mauritanian and Tunisian origin. The youths were accidentally electrocuted as they hid from police in a power substation. They apparently thought they were being chased. About 4,700 cars have been burned in France since the rioting began and 1,200 suspects were detained at least temporarily, Gaudin said. The growing violence is forcing France to confront long-simmering anger in its suburbs, where many immigrants and their French-born children live on society's margins, struggling with high unemployment, racial discrimination and despair - fertile terrain for crime of all sorts as well as for Muslim extremists offering frustrated youths a way out. France, with 5 million Muslims, has the largest Islamic population in Western Europe. Chirac, whose government is under intense pressure to halt the violence, promised stern punishment for those behind the attacks, making his first public comments Sunday since the riots started. ``The law must have the last word,'' Chirac said after a security meeting with top ministers. France is determined ``to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear, and they will be arrested, judged and punished.'' France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that forbade all those ``who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others.'' Arsonists burned two schools and a bus in the central city of Saint-Etienne and its suburbs, and two people were injured in the bus attack. Churches were set ablaze in northern Lens and southern Sete, he said. In Colombes in suburban Paris, youths pelted a bus with rocks, sending a 13-month-old child to the hospital with a head injury, Hamon said, while a daycare center was burned in Saint-Maurice, another Paris suburb. --- Associated Press writers Emmanuel Georges-Picot in Paris, Thierry Boinet in Grenoble and Jan Sliva in Strasbourg contributed to this report. |
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