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Security is tightened in central paris
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-12 00:45
Forces tightened security in central Paris on Friday, stationing riot police
and bomb squads along the Champs-Elysees as more than two weeks of arson and
vandalism persisted near the French capital.
Frustrated residents of the impoverished, Parisian suburbs that have been the
center of the unrest prepared to demonstrate near the Eiffel Tower, timing their
protest to coincide with official military commemorations for Armistice Day,
marking the end of World War I. Bomb squad police with dogs and metal-detecting
wands screened spectators as a military parade processed down the famed Paris
avenue.
"Today, we don't want an armistice — we want peace," national police chief
Michel Gaudin said. "An armistice is a temporary halt. What we want is
definitive peace for the suburbs."
Police blocked off large swaths of central Paris, with trucks of riot police
also deployed near the presidential palace. Some 715 officers brought in from
other districts raised the full deployment to 2,220.
The unrest has weakened in intensity across the rest of France under
state-of-emergency measures enacted Wednesday and a heavy police presence. On
Thursday, a 15th consecutive night of violence saw fewer skirmishes and fewer
cars burned — 463, down from 482 the previous night, police said. Among the few
buildings hit was a village banquet hall vandalized and burned in the
southeastern Drome region, officials said.
"We have seen a continued drop beyond Paris, but persistence near the
capital," national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. "We cannot yet claim
victory. The drop remains fragile."
France's foreign minister, speaking in Ukraine after meeting his counterpart,
also said Friday that order had been restored in "most cities."
"The situation is being stabilized," Philippe Douste-Blazy said in Kiev.
The mayhem sweeping neglected and impoverished neighborhoods with large
African and Arab communities has forced France to confront anger building for
decades among residents who complain of discrimination and unemployment.
Although many of the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants
are Muslim, police say the violence is not being driven by Islamic groups.
President Jacques Chirac acknowledged Thursday that France must confront the
social inequalities and prejudice that has fueled the violence — France's worst
since the 1968 student-worker uprising.
"There is a need to respond strongly and rapidly to the undeniable problems
faced by many residents of underprivileged neighborhoods around our cities,"
Chirac said.
"Whatever our origins, we are all the children of the Republic, and we can
all expect the same rights."
The first night of violence on Oct. 27 was touched off by youths angered by
the accidental deaths of two teenagers who believed they were being chased by
police. The teens hid in a power substation and were electrocuted.
Rioting swiftly spread from the northeastern suburban Paris town of
Clichy-sous-Bois and grew into a nationwide wave of arson and nightly clashes
between youths armed with firebombs and police retaliating with tear gas.
The Justice Ministry said Friday that 398 people have been jailed since the
violence began — 272 convicted in expedited trials and the rest detained pending
court appearances. Eighty-one were minors.
Bursts of similar violence have erupted in places like neighboring Germany
and Belgium, in what authorities believe may be copycat attacks. In Athens,
Greece, about 70 youths carrying clubs laid siege Friday to the entrance of the
French Institute to express support for the youths in France. They smashed
window and hurled paint at the building, though no injuries or arrests were
reported.
Residents representing nearly 160 suburban communities were to stage a sit-in
Friday afternoon at the Wall of Peace on the Champ de Mars, near the Eiffel
Tower, and possibly hold a peace march.
March organizer Banlieues Respects, a group whose name means "Suburb
Respect," issued a statement urging "an immediate end to the violence and for
peace to return to the neighborhoods where our parents, brothers and sisters
have lived for the past two weeks in a climate of uncertainty."
Police, meanwhile, suspended eight officers, two of them suspected of beating
a man detained during the riots. The victim had "superficial lesions" on the
forehead and the right foot, the Interior Ministry said.
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