PARIS, Nov 27: Riot police were deployed on Tuesday night across a north Paris suburb bracing for a possible repeat of youth riots that have left 120 police injured, as the government vowed zero tolerance for the “criminals” behind the violence.
For two nights running, young men have hurled petrol bombs and bricks at police, torching cars and buildings in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, where on Sunday two teenagers were killed in a motorbike collision with a police car.
Faced with the worst eruption of urban violence since the riots of 2005, Prime Minister Francois Fillon promised a beefed up security presence for the night to come, vowing to “do everything” to stop the violence from spreading across the Paris area.
“Those who shoot at policemen, those who beat a police officer almost to death are criminals and must be treated as such,” he told parliament. “We will do everything tonight to ensure maximum security.”
Returning from a state visit to China, President Nicolas Sarkozy was to chair a special meeting on the unrest on Wednesday morning, after receiving the families of the victims at the Elysee palace.
Two nights of violence have left five buildings damaged by fire in Villiers, just north of Paris, including a tax office, a supermarket, a library and a nursery school, as well as 63 cars. Fifteen people have been arrested.
A report from Le Monde newspaper described boys as young as 13 taking orders from their elders to torch buildings and forming battle ranks against the police, vowing to “do in” a “pig” — a police officer.
Police unions said the violence was worse than the rioting that hit hundreds of French cities in November 2005 — also sparked by the deaths of two youths.
Some 120 police officers have been injured, four of them seriously, after being hit by buckshot from hunting weapons, according to police figures. By comparison, 200 officers were injured in three weeks of rioting in 2005.—AFP
