[Mb-civic] Rioting Spreads From Paris Across France - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Rioting Spreads From Paris Across France

By JAMEY KEATEN
The Associated Press
Saturday, November 5, 2005; 8:19 AM

AUBERVILLIERS, France -- Widespread riots across impoverished areas of 
France took a malevolent turn in a ninth night of violence, with youths 
torching an ambulance and stoning medical workers coming to the aid of a 
sick person. Authorities arrested more than 250 people, an unprecedented 
sweep since the beginning of the unrest.

Bands of youths also burned a nursery school, warehouses and nearly 900 
cars overnight as the violence spread from the restive Paris suburbs to 
towns around France. The U.S. warned Americans against taking trains to 
the airport through the affected areas.

At the nursery school in Acheres, west of Paris, part of the roof was 
caved in, childrens' photos stuck to blackened walls, and melted plastic 
toys littered the floor.

The town had been previously untouched by the violence. Some residents 
demanded that the army be deployed, or that citizens rise up and form 
militias. At the school gate, the mayor tried to calm tempers.

"We are not going to start militias," Mayor Alain Outreman said. "You 
would have to be everywhere."

Fires and other incidents were reported in Lille, Toulouse, Rouen and 
elsewhere on the second night of unrest in areas beyond metropolitan 
Paris. An incendiary device was tossed at the wall of a synagogue in 
Pierrefitte, northwest of Paris, where electricity went out after a 
burning car damaged an electrical pole.

"This is dreadful, unfortunate. Who did this? Against whom?" Naima 
Mouis, a hospital worker in Suresnes, asked while looking at the hulk of 
her burned-out car.

On Saturday morning, more than 1,000 people took part in a silent march 
in one of the worst-hit suburbs, Aulnay-sous-Bois, filing past 
burned-out cars to demand calm. One banner read: "No to violence." Car 
torchings have become a daily fact in France's tough suburbs, with about 
100 each night.

The Interior Ministry said nearly 900 vehicles were burned throughout 
France from Friday night to Saturday morning, most in the Paris area.

Arrests were also up sharply, with more than 250 people detained 
overnight, nearly all in the Paris area, said national police spokesman 
Patrick Hamon. Police deployed in smaller teams and used a helicopter to 
track bands of youths going from attack to attack, he said.

Police had made just 78 arrests in the Paris region the previous night.

The violence _ sparked after the Oct. 27 accidental electrocution of two 
teenagers who believed police were chasing them in Seine-Saint-Denis _ 
has laid bare discontent simmering in France's poor suburbs ringing big 
cities. Those areas are home to large populations of African Muslim 
immigrants and their children living in low-income housing projects 
marked by high unemployment, crime and despair.

(continued)...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/05/AR2005110500390.html?nav=hcmodule
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