PARIS, Nov 6: An emergency meeting chaired by President Jacques Chirac and attended by key ministers responsible for security began in Paris late Sunday to discuss France’s worst rioting in nearly four decades.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and the ministers for education, economy and justice huddled behind closed doors with Chirac for the hastily-called gathering.

The fact news of the meeting was made public indicated the gravity of the situation. Usually, such meetings are not disclosed.

Chirac has been under increasing pressure from the opposition Socialist Party and even within his own ruling UMP party to make a public address on the violence since it began October 27.

So far, his only comment, transmitted via a spokesman last Wednesday, was that “tempers must calm down” and a warning that an escalation would be “dangerous”.

Since then, the riots have worsened, spreading from Paris to most of France’s other major cities — and even to the centre of the capital itself overnight Saturday.

More than 800 people have been arrested and 3,500 vehicles torched since the rampages first erupted.

Youths aged 15-25 and living in low-income areas dominated by immigrants from France’s former Arab and African colonial territories are behind the violence.

They initially took to the streets after two teenagers were electrocuted trying to hide in an electrical sub-station from a police identity check.

But their fury has continued unabated, driven by a hatred of Sarkozy and his hardline law-and-order rhetoric, and to protest their grim living conditions in suburbs with few employment prospects, miserable housing and education, and widespread petty crime.—AFP