Government in crises mode as riot-hit suburbs burn
France’s government went into crisis mode in a bid to deal with escalating riots in the suburbs of Paris.
The prime minister and interior minister cancelled overseas trips and the president called for calm as young men ran amok in a seventh night of violence last night.
In north-eastern suburbs around Clichy-sous-Bois, where the accidental deaths of two teenagers last week first prompted angry youths to rampage, the hulks of burned-out cars littered streets.
The teenagers were electrocuted while hiding in a power substation because they believed police were chasing them.
The violence, which has spread to at least nine Paris-region towns, has exposed the anger in France’s poor suburbs, some of them ghettos where police hesitate to venture despite evidence of being fertile terrain for Islamic extremists and criminal activity.
Leaders at Clichy-sous-Bois’ mosque prayed for peace and asked parents to keep teenagers off the streets.
But last night young people threw rocks at police in six suburbs in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris that includes Clichy, police said. About a dozen cars burned in the Le Blanc-Mesnil suburb and residents – some in bathrobes and slippers – poured into the streets to watch.
Nearly 200 vehicles have been set ablaze since the violence began, police said. A few dozen arrests have been made.
President Jacques Chirac told a weekly Cabinet meeting that “the law must be applied firmly” but “in a spirit of dialogue and respect”. The prime minister and interior minister cancelled trips abroad to deal with the unrest.
The rioting, concentrated in tough neighbourhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalised – cut off from prosperity and, for some extremists, its values.
“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 on Sunday, exacerbating the anger of local youths.
The violence has cast doubt on whether France has been successful in integrating its large immigrant communities. France’s Muslim population – an estimated five million – is Western Europe’s largest.
Immigrants and their French-born children often complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and other opportunities.
Eric, a 22-year-old in Clichy-sous-Bois born in France to Moroccan parents, said police targeted young people with dark skin. He said he had 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, refusing to give his surname.
