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Riots Scar Tough Paris Suburbs

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By NICOLAS GARRIGA, The Associated Press

Published: November 28, 2007

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Youths rampaged for a third night in the tough suburbs north of Paris, and violence spread to a southern city late Tuesday as police struggled to contain rioters who have burned cars and buildings and, in an ominous turn, shot at officers.

A senior police union official warned that "urban guerrillas" had joined the unrest, saying the violence is worse than during three weeks of rioting that raged around French cities in 2005, when firearms were rarely used.

Bands of young people set more cars and garbage bins on fire in Villiers-le-Bel, the Paris suburb where the latest trouble first erupted, and a grocery store was torched in a nearby town, the regional government said. In the south, 10 cars and a library went up in flames in Toulouse, police said.

The government was striving to keep violence from spreading in a stern test for new President Nicolas Sarkozy. It showed that anger still smolders in France's poor neighborhoods, where many Arabs, blacks and other minorities live largely isolated from the rest of society.

The trigger was the deaths Sunday of two minority teens when their motor scooter collided with a police car in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town on Paris' northern edge.

Residents claimed the officers left without helping the teens. Prosecutor Marie-Therese de Givry denied that, saying police stayed on the scene until firefighters arrived.

Rioting and arson erupted Sunday night, with youths attacking a police station. The violence worsened Monday night as it spread from Villiers-le-Bel to other impoverished suburbs north of the French capital. Rioters burned a library, a nursery school and a car dealership and tried to set some buildings afire by crashing burning cars into them.

More police moved in Tuesday trying to prevent a third night of rioting, as officials sought to keep the upheaval from spreading to other impoverished areas as happened two years ago.

Patrice Ribeiro of the Synergie police union said rioters this time included "genuine urban guerrillas," saying the use of firearms - hunting shotguns so far - had added a dangerous dimension.

Police said 82 officers were injured Monday night, 10 of them by buckshot and pellets. Four were seriously wounded, the force said. Police unions said 30 officers were struck by buckshot.

One rioter with a shotgun "was firing off two shots, reloading in a stairwell, coming back out - Boom! Boom! - and firing again," said Gilles Wiart, No. 2 official in the SGP-FO police union.

Youths, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants, again appeared to be lashing out at police and other targets seen to represent a French establishment they feel has left them behind.

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