Oh! To Be In Paris Now That Fire Is Here

French riots defy crackdown

05/11/2005 20:50 - (SA

Paris - French authorities on Saturday stepped up police action against youths responsible for more than a week of urban riots as suspicions grew that the gangs were becoming increasingly organised.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy called a meeting of police chiefs to discuss tactics as they braced for another night of violence that has so far defied all efforts to stamp it out.

In a sign of the government's resolve, police said more than 250 people were arrested during Friday night alone - doubling at once the number of detentions recorded since the troubles first erupted on October 27.

Nearly 900 vehicles were torched that same night, making it the worst in terms of the arson attacks that have come to characterise the rampages.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin held a crisis meeting with Sarkozy and other key ministers on Saturday, as the rioting dominated world headlines and prompted the United States and Russia to warn its citizens against travelling through Paris suburbs.

Officials were "unanimous in their firmness" in seeking an end to the violence, Sarkozy said after the meeting.

Hey! Jacques, want to buy a Peugeot? Cheap?

"The violence is not acceptable," he told journalists.

While the government acknowledged that the grim conditions in the suburbs - chronic high unemployment, racial discrimination, miserable housing, drugs - had much to do with the discontent, Sarkozy and other security officials also voiced suspicions that the unrest was being organised.

Well I'm glad their "unanimous in their firmness" sounds like an ad for a mattress. This is what appeasement has wrought. "We musn't attack the terrorists in Iraq, that might anger our muslim population. We must fight the Les Americains Desire Imperiale to attack Saddam Hussein, then the Arabs will love us." I hear John Francois Kerry is going "Swift...ly over there to tell them he was in Vietnam. Come let us reason together. Well you can't say the French don't deserve this, that's for sure.

Full Story: French Strategy at Work

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