Just checkin' to see if your safe, dude.
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Fifth night of unrest in Paris suburb following deaths of two youths
Nov 01 12:43 AM US/Eastern
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http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/01/051101054304.gpxunwd2.html
Police fired tear gas canisters and rioters hurled Molotov cocktails as violence hit a poor Paris suburb for the fifth straight night in unrest that officials said had also spread to neighbouring towns.
The local prefecture said that the levels of violence in the troubled suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois were lower than on previous nights.
However 12 people were arrested in the town, which has a large Muslim community, during a night in which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a police station and 11 cars and trash cans were torched.
Tensions have been running high between police and gangs of youths in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of the capital, since the accidental death by electrocution last Thursday of two teenagers.
Many of the youths targeting police were angry at the deaths of two youths, aged 15 and 19, who were electrocuted after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer.
The local public prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the boys thought they were being chased by police, but authorities denied that was the case.
The launching of a tear gas grenade at a mosque late Sunday threatened to further escalate the troubles.
Police fired more tear gas overnight Monday to disperse around 100 youths involved in a stand-off with some 50 officers near the mosque.
The area was quiet by 1:00 am (midnight GMT).
In another worrying development, Monday night was the first time that the unrest was reported to have spread to neighbouring areas of the Seine-Saint-Denis region abutting Paris.
Just after midnight in nearby Montfermeil, the municipal police garage was set ablaze and two cars destroyed, a prefecture spokesman said.
Elsewhere in the towns of Sevran and Aulnay-sous-Bois police were subjected to "stone-throwing" gangs but there were no injuries, according to the local prefecture. Small fires were also lit in the towns.
One police source told AFP that "the Clichy rioters are being copied in Sevran, Neuilly-sur-Marne and Bondy", where he said vehicles were torched.
However the prefecture described the latest trouble as "harassment" by small groups of 10 or 15 people rather than the "rioting" seen last week.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- who has implemented hardline urban security policies in his bid to be a conservative candidate in France's 2007 presidential elections -- visited the administrative headquarters responsible for the suburb.
"Everyone has to understand that my determination is absolute" in confronting the violence, he told journalists.
Sarkozy, who is also leader of France's ruling UMP party, vowed to wage a "war without mercy" on crime in the Paris suburbs just a week before the rampages.
The minister said Clichy-sous-Bois and the surrounding area would be the first to try out his latest initiative: cameras on police patrol cars to capture suspects' actions.
Asked about the tear gas grenade at the mosque, he admitted that it was of the type used by anti-riot police but cautioned "that does not mean that it was fired by a police officer."
The families of the two boys killed snubbed Sarkozy's invitation to meet with them, and called the tear gas incident "disrespectful."
"We are asking for calm, we are asking for justice and we are asking for the riot police to leave," Siyakah Traore, brother of one of the victims, told a press conference at the mosque.
Among those detained since Thursday were four minors, who were to be brought before a children's court judge Tuesday.
Another magistrate on Monday ordered three young men to jail for two months.
Of the 28,000-plus residents of Clichy-sous-Bois, 50 percent of the population is under 25 and one-quarter of the breadwinners in each household have no job, according to the town's website.
Like many working-class districts on the capital's northern rim, it has a heavy concentration of immigrants including first and second generation Muslims from France's former colonies. Its "cities", the French euphemism for subsidized low-income housing developments, are prey to the crime and social trouble fuelled by unemployment rates more than double the national level of around 10 percent.
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Fifth night of unrest in Paris suburb following deaths of two youths
Nov 01 12:43 AM US/Eastern
Email this story http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/01/051101054304.gpxunwd2.html
Police fired tear gas canisters and rioters hurled Molotov cocktails as violence hit a poor Paris suburb for the fifth straight night in unrest that officials said had also spread to neighbouring towns.
The local prefecture said that the levels of violence in the troubled suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois were lower than on previous nights.
However 12 people were arrested in the town, which has a large Muslim community, during a night in which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a police station and 11 cars and trash cans were torched.
Tensions have been running high between police and gangs of youths in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of the capital, since the accidental death by electrocution last Thursday of two teenagers.
Many of the youths targeting police were angry at the deaths of two youths, aged 15 and 19, who were electrocuted after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station and touched a transformer.
The local public prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the boys thought they were being chased by police, but authorities denied that was the case.
The launching of a tear gas grenade at a mosque late Sunday threatened to further escalate the troubles.
Police fired more tear gas overnight Monday to disperse around 100 youths involved in a stand-off with some 50 officers near the mosque.
The area was quiet by 1:00 am (midnight GMT).
In another worrying development, Monday night was the first time that the unrest was reported to have spread to neighbouring areas of the Seine-Saint-Denis region abutting Paris.
Just after midnight in nearby Montfermeil, the municipal police garage was set ablaze and two cars destroyed, a prefecture spokesman said.
Elsewhere in the towns of Sevran and Aulnay-sous-Bois police were subjected to "stone-throwing" gangs but there were no injuries, according to the local prefecture. Small fires were also lit in the towns.
One police source told AFP that "the Clichy rioters are being copied in Sevran, Neuilly-sur-Marne and Bondy", where he said vehicles were torched.
However the prefecture described the latest trouble as "harassment" by small groups of 10 or 15 people rather than the "rioting" seen last week.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- who has implemented hardline urban security policies in his bid to be a conservative candidate in France's 2007 presidential elections -- visited the administrative headquarters responsible for the suburb.
"Everyone has to understand that my determination is absolute" in confronting the violence, he told journalists.
Sarkozy, who is also leader of France's ruling UMP party, vowed to wage a "war without mercy" on crime in the Paris suburbs just a week before the rampages.
The minister said Clichy-sous-Bois and the surrounding area would be the first to try out his latest initiative: cameras on police patrol cars to capture suspects' actions.
Asked about the tear gas grenade at the mosque, he admitted that it was of the type used by anti-riot police but cautioned "that does not mean that it was fired by a police officer."
The families of the two boys killed snubbed Sarkozy's invitation to meet with them, and called the tear gas incident "disrespectful."
"We are asking for calm, we are asking for justice and we are asking for the riot police to leave," Siyakah Traore, brother of one of the victims, told a press conference at the mosque.
Among those detained since Thursday were four minors, who were to be brought before a children's court judge Tuesday.
Another magistrate on Monday ordered three young men to jail for two months.
Of the 28,000-plus residents of Clichy-sous-Bois, 50 percent of the population is under 25 and one-quarter of the breadwinners in each household have no job, according to the town's website.
Like many working-class districts on the capital's northern rim, it has a heavy concentration of immigrants including first and second generation Muslims from France's former colonies. Its "cities", the French euphemism for subsidized low-income housing developments, are prey to the crime and social trouble fuelled by unemployment rates more than double the national level of around 10 percent.
