One teenager was arrested after nine were injured in a violent weekend brawl between hundreds of rival suburban gang members at a shopping center outside Paris, court sources said today.
One male youth was still in hospital in serious condition today after being stabbed yesterday before in the throat, police said. Eight others were slightly injured.
The arrested youth was set to appear in juvenile court tomorrow.
As shoppers flooded the mall at La Defense, a business district just west of Paris, yesterday afternoon to benefit from mid-winter sales, some 200 to 300 youths, members of rival gangs from neighboring suburbs, gathered first in the mall and then on the large plaza near it.
Some were armed with knives, guns firing blanks, axes and baseball bats.
It took riot police three hours to restore calm to the shopping center, where the teens played cat and mouse with police while clients continued to shop.
AFP