PARIS (AP) - The torching of thousands of cars by restive suburban youths across France in the last few weeks has drawn worldwide attention, but it's a tactic with a long tradition in this country.
| Just a quaint local custom, nothing to see here, move along |
Whether for revenge, crime or simply for sport, French youths have been setting cars aflame for decades. They torched cars during France's first major bout with suburban violence in the 1980s in tough neighborhoods ringing Lyon.
Gangs over the years have stolen cars to use for other crimes, then burned them, said criminologist Alain Bauer, president of the French National Crime Commission. And in the 1990s, youths in Detroit Strasbourg began torching cars to mark Halloween the New Year. "It was like a fun thing to do," Bauer said. Each year, "they burned 10, 20, 50, then 100. It became a tradition. This tradition spread all over the country."
Setting cars afire has a symbolic impact, Bauer said. "In France, a car is like a jewel," he said. "You use it not only to work but as a representation of your social status." | Same thing here, big difference being if you set fire to some dudes ride, you're asking to git shot. |
National police said Wednesday that almost 9,000 vehicles - cars, buses, motorcycles - had been set afire since the Oct. 27 start of the urban unrest that began in a northeast Paris suburb and spread to poor suburbs and towns around France. But between January and the end of October, 30,000 cars had already been torched across the country, National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said in an interview published Tuesday in the daily Le Monde.
The unrest that started Oct. 27 reflects long pent-up frustrations of despairing suburban youths - often the children of Muslim North African immigrants - who face daily discrimination on the job market and elsewhere and are locked out of mainstream French society.
One difference between the unrest in the 1980s and the more recent burnings is that rioters in Lyon positioned the cars between themselves and police to use the vehicles as "weapons" against security forces - "like throwing stones," said Bauer. In addition to crime and sport, car torchings have a "tribal" dimension among suburban gangs. "It's a way to show they own the neighborhood. It's territorial control with tribalization," Bauer said. Cars are accessible and easy to set afire, and the torcher pays a minimal price - if caught at all, said Patrice Ribeiro, national secretary of the Synergie police officers union. Cars "burn well and fast," he added.
Yet another motive - classic but more cynical - is the ambush, said Ribeiro. The car is burned to draw the firemen who are followed by police. "You (then) attack the police," he said. Ribeiro said most of those convicted of car arson simply end up paying fines. "Little by little it has become a sport," he said. |