Belgium: Ten cars were set on fire in Belgium over the past three days, five of which were burnt out in Brussels on Monday night.
Most of the incidents were reported around the areas of the southern train station, Gare du Midi and the nearby centrally located Saint-Gilles. Police and firemen were on the streets trying to control the fires with reports emerging that police were pelted with stones.
One car was also reported to have been burnt out in the northern town of Sint Niklaas while petrol bombs were thrown in the eastern city of Liege.
Authorities said they were isolated incidents, where youths copied what they are seeing happening in parts of France on the television.
"There were no riots. These were all very isolated incidents. Whoever set fire to the cars must have been influenced by the footage of what is going on in France," Brussels fire department spokesman Francis Boileau said. Belgium, like France, has a large immigrant population, many of whom are from Morocco.
Philippe Moureaux, mayor of the Brussels district of Molenbeek said the situation was not the same as in France.
"Our situation cannot be compared with the French one. There are no huge, high-rise suburbs like in France . . . moreover, we do not have an interior minister like [ Nicolas] Sarkozy, who starts provoking the troublemakers," he told De Standaard daily.