FRANCE: French security forces prepared last night for further violence after immigrant youths confronted CRS riot police during five successive nights of rioting in the northeastern suburbs of Paris.
The violence began last Thursday night in Clichy-sous-Bois after two young men were electrocuted when they hid in an electricity substation while fleeing police. On Monday night, rioting spread to Bondy, Sevran, Aulnay-sous-Bois and Neuilly-sur-Marne, other banlieues in the Seine-Saint-Denis department.
The préfecture called the violence "acts of harassment" rather than "riots", explaining it was caused by small groups of 10 to 15 young men attacking riot police with stones, bottles and iron bars.
On Monday night, 400 riot police were deployed in Clichy alone, against an estimated 200 youths.
The groups of young men of Arab and African origin are better organised each night. They wear tracksuits and runners, communicate with each other by mobile telephone and melt into side streets and buildings when pursued by police.
The unseasonably warm weather and the fact that this is the Muslim month of Ramadan are believed to have aggravated the violence. A resident of Clichy said 80 per cent of its inhabitants are Muslim.
Although "only" 18 cars were burned in Clichy on Monday night (compared to about 50 per night during the first nights of rioting), 100 cars were burned across France, including 70 in Seine-Saint-Denis.
It had been hoped the violence would subside after a silent march on Sunday in protest at the accidental deaths of Zyed and Bouna.
But tension grew after riot police fired a tear-gas canister into the Bilal mosque in Clichy during evening prayers on Sunday. "Smoke filled the place," a worshipper named Katidja told Libération newspaper. "Everyone was coughing, crying. A lot of people fainted ... There were old people, mothers."
The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose "zero tolerance" policy has been blamed for the unrest in the banlieues, confirmed the tear gas canister was of the type used by riot police, but said an investigation would determine who fired it.
Another inhabitant of Clichy told Le Monde of his indignation that a mosque had been desecrated.
"What would people have said if it had been a synagogue?" he asked. "We've had residency papers for generations, but we're not French like other people."
On Monday, three young men charged with throwing stones and bottles at police were sentenced to two months in prison, plus six-month suspended terms. Twelve more men were arrested on Monday night.
France's immigrant banlieues have been repositories of unassimilated, frustrated and sometimes violent young men for nearly 30 years.
Zyed and Bouna, the Arab and African youths who died on October 27th, scaled walls to hide in an electricity substation after police entered the area to investigate a reported break-in.
The families of the two young men refused to meet Mr Sarkozy, saying they wanted to see prime minister Dominique de Villepin instead. Siyakah Traore, the brother of Bouna, said he was offended by Mr Sarkozy's television appearance on Sunday night, and by the way the investigation was being carried out.
"Those who have suffered aggression are the forces of order and not the louts," the interior minister told police in the suburb of Bobigny on Monday. He praised the police's "professionalism" and said his "new strategy" consists of "holding ground, permanently, in all the problem neighbourhoods".
Azouz Begag, France's minister for equal opportunity and the only member of the cabinet to have grown up in the banlieues, said it was "by fighting discrimination" and "not by bringing out the riot police" that order could be re-established.