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Chirac vows arrests; four Chinese injured
(AP/China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-07 07:47
Arsonists burned 1,295 vehicles nationwide overnight Saturday-Sunday —
sharply up from 897 the night before, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon
said, adding that police made 349 arrests nationwide.
For a second night, a helicopter equipped with spotlights and video cameras
to track bands of marauding youths combed Paris suburbs and small teams of
police chased rioters speeding from attack to attack in cars and on motorbikes.
"What we notice is that the bands of youths are, little by little, getting
more organized," arranging attacks through cell phone text messages and learning
how to make gasoline bombs, Hamon said.
French police holds a shotgun shell recovered
after they were shot upon in Grigny, south of Paris on the 11th night of
violence late November 6, 2005.[Reuters] | Police
also found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a derelict building in Evry south
of Paris, with more than 100 bottles ready to turned into bombs, another 50
already prepared, as well as fuel stocks and hoods for hiding rioters' faces,
senior Justice Ministry official Jean-Marie Huet told The Associated Press.
Police arrested six people, all under 18.
The discovery Saturday night, he said, shows that gasoline bombs "are not
being improvised by kids in their bathrooms."
Police said copycat attacks are fanning the unrest but had no evidence of
separate gangs coordinating. Officials said older youths, many already with
police records, appear to be teaching younger teens arson techniques.
Unrest extended west to Normandy and south to Nice and Cannes on the
Mediterranean coast, with attacks in or around the cities of Lyon, Lille,
Marseille, Strasbourg. In all, 3,300 buses, cars and other vehicles have been
incinerated in 10 nights, the police spokesman said.
In Evreux, 60 miles west of Paris, five police officers and three
firefighters were injured in clashes with youths who destroyed at least 50
vehicles, shops and businesses, a post office and two schools, authorities said.
"Rioters attacked us with baseball bats," said Philippe Jofres, a deputy fire
chief, told France-2 television. "We were attacked with pickaxes. It was war."
The rioting erupted Oct. 27 after two teenagers of north African descent were
accidentally electrocuted as they hid in a power substation, apparently
believing police were chasing them. Anger was then fanned anew days ago when a
tear gas bomb exploded in a mosque in Clichy-sous-Bois — the northern suburb
where the youths died.
Government officials have held a series of meetings with Muslim religious
leaders, local officials and youths from poor suburbs to try to calm the
violence.
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