FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac has finally commented on the unrest that has engulfed the immigrant suburbs surrounding Paris, telling a cabinet meeting yesterday: "The law must be applied firmly and in a spirit of dialogue and respect. An absence of dialogue and an escalation of disrespect will lead to a dangerous situation."
Mr Chirac spoke after six consecutive nights of rioting, and two days after the opposition socialists accused him of maintaining "a deafening silence" about the violence. During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, unrest spread to three more administrative départements in the Paris region.
Groups of African and north African Arab immigrants attacked riot police and set fire to cars and rubbish bins in the Yvelines, Val-d'Oise and Seine-et-Marne departments, as well as in Seine-Saint-Denis, where the violence started on October 27th.
Clichy-sous-Bois, the town where two boys, aged 15 and 17, were electrocuted in a power substation because they believed they were being pursued by police, was quiet as violence moved to other suburbs where security forces were deployed in smaller numbers.
Claude Dilain, the socialist mayor of Clichy, said that even if last night was peaceful it could not be considered "a victory, because we all have the feeling that this calm could be precarious . . . If French society accepts that there are tinderboxes within its borders, it can't be surprised when they explode."
Despite the relative peace in Clichy, 153 cars were burned in the surrounding Seine-Saint-Denis department on Tuesday night; 228 throughout France, police said.
On a "normal" day, an average of 30 cars are burned in the country. French radio reported 150 blazes in rubbish bins in Seine-Saint-Denis, where 80 per cent of France's poorest inhabitants are said to live. Thirty-four people were arrested.
The conflict has evolved from head-on confrontations between large groups of youths and riot police on the first nights to a series of hit-and-run urban guerrilla-type clashes. The police, like the young men they are fighting, now deploy in smaller units. Dressed in boots, helmets and body armour, they brandish tear gas grenade launchers and "flash-balls" - imported stun-guns that fire an electrical charge which temporarily paralyses the target. The only live ammunition used so far was fired against security forces from a building in Clichy several nights ago, without harming anyone.
Security forces advance slowly among the high-rise HLMs (low-income housing estates) from which rioters throw bottles and stones. By the time police arrive, the young men have disappeared.
The violence creates an eerie night-time landscape of bonfires and shadows, smoke that smells of burning rubber and streets carpeted in stones and broken glass.
At yesterday's cabinet meeting, Mr Chirac said: "There cannot be no-go areas of the Republic." He called for a speedy conclusion to investigations into the deaths of the two teenagers, the mugging and murder of a middle-aged salesman in another banlieue on the same day, and the firing of a tear-gas cannister into a mosque on Sunday. "But beyond the investigation and the restoration of public security, we must always base our action on the founding principles of our Republic," he said. "Everyone must respect the law; everyone must have his chance."
The president's words were relayed to the press by the government spokesman, Jean-Francois Copé. "Hurt and deep frustration have built up," Mr Chirac admitted, adding: "But violence is not an answer."
Mr Chirac listed four measures taken under his auspices: the law on social cohesion; the plan for urban renewal and the establishment of a high authority against discrimination and an integration policy. He gave the government one month "to make proposals to speed up and improve their efficacy." Of the interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, a long-time political rival, Mr Chirac demanded a new "plan for the prevention of delinquency."
Mr Sarkozy has been widely accused of provoking the violence by referring to immigrant youths as "scum" and "louts". He yesterday cancelled a planned trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, cancelled his scheduled trip to Canada.