PARIS, Nov 13: Violence continued in French suburbs on Saturday night, despite curfews in some 30 localities and a ban on public meetings was imposed in Lyon on Sunday to head off more clashes in its historic centre.

But national police officials said the number of attacks across the country was falling and expressed hope of a gradual return to normality.

In the first disturbances in the heart of a French city since the start of the troubles on Oct 27, police used teargas to disperse a crowd of stone-throwing youths on the seventeenth-century Place Bellecour. Eleven people were arrested.

On Sunday authorities in the city — France’s third largest — issued an order banning public gatherings “likely to provoke or incite disorder on the streets or in public places.” The order applied to the city centre and was to last through the afternoon.

Overnight a total of 374 cars were burned across the country, a fall of 128 on the night before and well below the high point last Sunday when some 1,300 vehicles were destroyed.

Police said 212 people were arrested, bringing the total of those detained since the start of the troubles to more than 2,650.

A police official was taken to a hospital when a metal ball used in the French bowling game of petanque was dropped on him from an apartment block in the northern Paris suburb of La Courneuve, hitting the side of his head and shoulder.—AFP