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France: The worst appears to be over but tensions still high
Exactly two weeks into one of the worst crises in the country's modern history, France's government was cautiously hopeful Thursday that the wave of violence that has swept through many of its towns and cities could be past its peak.A marked downturn in the number of car-burnings overnight Tuesday -- coupled with a carrot-and-stick initiative combining emergency police powers with the promise of more help for the impoverished suburbs -- provided the first hint that calm could be returning. There was a "significant fall" in the level of violence in French towns and cities overnight, with 482 cars burned and 203 people arrested, national police chief Michel Gaudin said Thursday. The previous night saw 617 cars torched and 330 people arrested. The fall was especially marked in the Paris region, where the riots began on October 27 but which saw only 95 cars burned overnight. The figures confirmed a pattern established since the weekend which has seen the provinces overtake the capital as the prime focus of the unrest. At the peak of the trouble on Sunday night some 1,400 vehicles were burned 395 people arrested across the country. Isolated outbreaks of violence were reported during the night at Lyon -- where there was a two-hour power cut for many residents because of an act of sabotage -- Toulouse, Lille, Belfort and Saint-Quentin. In the worst outbreak of urban violence since May 1968, France has been struggling to contain a surge of car-burnings, arson attacks and rioting carried out in the main by young Arab and black residents of the country's poor out-of-town estates. After the main focus of the riots shifted at the weekend away from the capital, the violence appeared to be spurred by a spirit of competition among neighbourhoods across the country, which police officials were hoping had now run its course. However tensions remained high, and there was acute awareness that a mishandled situation -- or worse the injury or death of a rioter -- could easily plunge the high-immigration 'banlieues' back into the abyss. Rest at link. Posted by: ed 2005-11-10 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=134629 |