PARIS: The rioting that has engulfed France abated significantly as authorities imposed curfew in 38 communities and said they would deport non-citizens convicted of participating in the violence. After a massive deployment of law-enforcement in recent days, the number of arson attacks on cars dropped by almost half overnight to 617. Police reported relative calm on Wednesday in most trouble spots, including the tough housing projects outside Paris where the violence began two weeks ago.

“There are fewer and fewer significant incidents,” Michel Gaudin, the director of the national police, said in a briefing. Only one police officer was slightly wounded overnight, he added, compared with many injuries a night during the peak of the disturbances. But youths in Toulouse clashed with police on Wednesday night and burned seven cars. Lyon’s public transport had not fully recovered from a firebomb attack at a subway station on Tuesday night that temporarily shut the underground system.

Police commanders in the field on Wednesday said they were on guard against a resurgence of trouble. Friday is Armistice Day, and disturbances in some troubled areas often flare during long weekends and vacations. Several police officials cited intelligence in the Paris region indicating that youth gangs might attempt an offensive during the weekend with a new strategy: hitting more affluent communities farther from the riot zones.

“Things are still tense,” a high-ranking police official said. “Based on what we are hearing, I can’t exclude the possibility that there could be mobile groups adapting to our defences by changing strategy. They might go after wealthier suburbs, or Paris itself.”

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy announced on Wednesday that immigrants who were not French citizens and were convicted of rioting would be deported.

Many of the rioters are second- or third-generation French citizens whose families emigrated from Africa. Sarkozy said about 120 immigrants had been convicted in fast-track trials of about 1,800 suspects arrested since the riots began Oct. 27.

Prefects, the top law-enforcement officials in France’s administrative regions, will be authorized to strip legal immigrants of their residency status as a result of criminal convictions, Sarkozy said. —Dawn /LAT-WP News Service