Riots in France: Prime minister imposes curfews
PARIS–France will impose curfews "wherever it is necessary" and call up 1,500 police reservists to stop rioting, the prime minister said last night as civil unrest erupted for a 12th night with youths setting fire to an empty bus and attacking police in Toulouse.
The announcement came as similar violence was reported in neighboring Belgium and Germany and the French government faced growing criticism for its inability to stop the violence in its tough suburbs. Governments worldwide urged their citizens to be careful in France.
A 61-year-old man also died Monday of wounds sustained in an attack as he tried to put out a trash can fire, the first fatality since the unrest began.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said 1,500 police and gendarme reservists were being called up to reinforce the 8,000 troops already deployed to stem the violence that has shocked the nation.
"The response is one of firmness," he said on television, adding that curfews will be allowed "wherever it is necessary."
Local government officials will be able to put curfews in place "if they think it will be useful to permit a return to calm and ensure the protection of residents. That is our number one responsibility," he said.
One riot-hit town in suburban Paris said earlier that it was preparing to enforce a curfew.
In Toulouse, rioters stopped a bus and ordered the driver to get out, then set the vehicle on fire, said Francis Soutric, chief of staff at the regional prefecture in Toulouse. No passengers were inside.
When riot police arrived on the scene, about 50 youths hurled firebombs and other objects at them. Police responded with tear gas, the official said.
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 yesterday.
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 reporters.
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.
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