France: Rioting loses steam
France’s storm of rioting lost strength today with a drop of nearly half in the number of car burnings, police said. But looters and vandals still defied a state of emergency with attacks on stores, a newspaper warehouse and a subway station.
The extraordinary 12-day state of emergency went into effect at midnight yesterday, giving special powers to authorities in Paris, its suburbs and more than 30 other cities from the Mediterranean to the German border – an indication of how widespread arson, riots and other unrest have become in nearly two weeks of violence.
The emergency decree invoked a 50-year-old security law dating from France’s colonial war in Algeria. It empowers officials to put troublemakers under house arrest, ban or limit the movement of people and vehicles, confiscate weapons and close public spaces where gangs gather.
Local officials could also choose to impose curfews. By midday today, only a few municipalities and regions had. Paris had not.
A poll published in today’s daily Le Parisien said 73% of those asked agreed with the curfew.
The unrest started on October 27 as a localised riot in a northeast Paris suburb in anger over the accidental deaths of two teenagers, of Mauritanian and Tunisian descent, electrocuted while hiding from police in a power sub-station.
It has grown into a nationwide insurrection by disillusioned suburban youths, many of them French-born children of immigrants from France’s former territories such as Algeria. France’s suburbs have long been neglected, and their young people complain of widespread discrimination and a lack of jobs.
Overnight, youths torched 617 vehicles, down from 1,173 on Monday night, police said. Incidents were reported in 116 towns, down from 226. Police made 280 arrests, raising the total to 1,830 since the violence broke out 13 nights ago.
“The arrests are bearing fruit,” said Interior Ministry spokesman Franck Louvrier. “It’s clear there has been a significant drop, but we must persevere.”
Christian Gaillard de Lavernee, head of the national civil security brigade, told reporters that firefighters responded to 30% fewer calls overnight than the previous day.
In some towns, concerned residents have banded together to keep overnight watch on public buildings and to patrol their neighbourhoods, armed only with fire extinguishers.
“We are not Rambos!” said Manuel Aeschliman, the mayor of Asnieres northwest of Paris, to a dozen volunteers as they set off on rounds. “No intervention - If you see something, call it in.”
National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said an additional 1,000 officers were deployed overnight, bringing the total to 11,500. He attributed the drop in attacks to police sweeps and co-operation from community groups.
Riot police fired tear gas to disperse youths throwing petrol bombs in the southwestern city of Toulouse, and rioters used petrol bombs to blow up an unoccupied bus powered by natural-gas in the town of Bassens, near Bordeaux. No injuries were reported.
Subway service that had been shut down in the eastern city of Lyon resumed today after a firebomb exploded in a station late yesterday. No-one was injured, but city transport officials announced that bus and subway service will be halted each evening at 7pm local time at least until Sunday as a precaution.
Arsonists also set fire to a warehouse used by Nice-Matin newspaper in Grasse, national police spokesman Patrick Reydy said. Youths looted and set fire to a furniture and electronics store and an adjacent carpet store in Arras in the north, he said.
The northern city of Amiens, central Orleans and Savigny-sur-Orge, and the Essonne region south of the capital were putting into place curfews for minors, who must be accompanied by adults at night. Two cars burned in Amiens overnight despite the curfew, compared with six a night earlier, police said.
Curfew violators face up to two months in jail and a £2,500 (€3,700) fine, the Justice Ministry said. Minors face one month in jail.
The state-of-emergency law was drawn up to quell unrest in Algeria during its war of independence from France, and was last used in 1984 by President Francois Mitterrand against rioting in the French Pacific Ocean territory of New Caledonia.
