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Rioting in France
« on: Nov 8th, 2005, 11:38am » |
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France faces "moment of truth" - Villepin
By Timothy Heritage
48 minutes ago
PARIS (Reuters) - France is wounded and faces a moment of truth, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Tuesday, after his government approved the use of curfews to quell 12 nights of rioting.
The protests, blamed on racism and unemployment in rundown suburbs, receded in the Paris region after shots were fired at police the previous night but continued unabated in other parts of France in the early hours of Tuesday, with youths torching more than 1,000 vehicles overnight.
"The Republic faces a moment of truth ... France is wounded. It cannot recognize itself in its streets and devastated areas, in these outbursts of hatred and violence which destroy and kill," Villepin told the lower house of parliament.
"A return to order is the absolute priority. The government has shown this. It will take all the steps necessary to ensure the protection of our citizens and to restore calm ... We see these events as a warning and as an appeal."
Five cars were torched in Brussels in what officials say could have been copycat attacks, but the rioting did not spread across the border. Even so, fears of riots erupting in other countries helped push down the value of the euro.
Villepin's conservative government adopted a decree at an emergency session under a 1955 law that allows regional government officials known as prefects to impose curfews if they consider it necessary.
The decree was due to take effect at 2300 GMT, after the Interior Ministry decides where prefects can impose curfews not widely seen here since the Algerian war of 1954-1962.
Villepin said 1,500 police would be brought in to back up the 8,000 officers already deployed in areas hit by unrest involving poor white youths as well as French-born citizens of Arab or African origin complaining of racism.
Outlining his plans to parliament, he promised to accelerate urban renewal programs and vowed to help young people in poor suburbs by reducing unemployment and improving their education opportunities.
CHIRAC AND VILLEPIN UNDER PRESSURE
President Jacques Chirac said the measures were needed to restore order but pressure is mounting on him and Villepin over France's worst unrest in decades. The president has said little in public about the violence, in which one man has been killed.
"The absence of the president is remarkable in this period we're going through," said Francois Bayrou, head of a centrist party that is critical of the conservative government.
Responding to Villepin's speech, Socialist Party deputy Jean-Marc Ayrault prompted boos from conservative deputies by telling parliament: "Your government, Mr. Prime Minister ... bears heavy responsibility over this outburst of passions."
Mayors of riot-hit towns welcomed the government's tougher line. A town east of Paris imposed its own curfew on minors on Monday evening and another to the west of the capital organized citizens' patrols to help the police.
But some mayors asked what another measure announced by Villepin -- extended powers for them -- would mean in practice.
"Every time they announce more powers for mayors, they cut the funds," complained Jean-Christophe Lagarde, mayor of the northeastern Paris suburb of Drancy.
The opposition Socialists said Villepin had not done enough to give hope to those people in areas hit by the unrest.
CONCERN ABROAD
Although Villepin first announced his plans to end the unrest on Monday evening, new violence erupted overnight.
Some 1,173 vehicles were torched compared to 1,408 on Sunday night, the Interior Ministry said. At least four police were hurt, compared with 36 on Sunday, and 330 rioters were detained.
The unrest hit Toulouse, Lille and Strasbourg as well as some Paris suburbs, where violence began on October 27 after two youths were accidentally electrocuted trying to flee police.
The euro's fall highlighted concerns abroad, at one point falling to a two-year low against the dollar.
Officials in Belgium played down the violence there, although there were minor arson incidents in Sint Niklaas in the north and Liege in the east as well as in the capital.
But Brussels fire department spokesman Francis Boileau said: "Whoever set fire to the cars must have been influenced by the footage of what is going on in France."
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urged Turkish immigrants living in Europe to avoid getting caught up in riots. Influential Muslim cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi called for calm and urged the French government to address the root causes.
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