FRANCE: The riots in France continued to escalate yesterday with arson attacks for the first time during daylight hours. Five cars were burned in a parking lot near the courthouse in Bobigny, a suburb northeast of Paris, where 22 young men were being judged for participating in the violence. Seventy more were arrested from Thursday night to Friday morning.
That night more than 600 vehicles were burned across the country, 500 in the Île-de-France (Paris) region. Also for the first time, the rioting spread to far-flung parts of the country, including Dijon, Marseille and Normandy. Seven cars were burned within the perimeter of the capital's périphérique ring road.
There was widespread outrage at the revelation that a handicapped woman was seriously injured in an attack on a bus in the suburb of Sevran.
At about 9.30pm on Wednesday, a bus was stopped outside the suburban train station by a barricade of burning rubbish bins in the midst of the Beaudottes housing project. The passengers got off the bus, but a 56-year-old woman with crutches had to be helped by the driver.
Two young men splashed petrol throughout the bus, and on to the woman and driver, then tossed a burning rag at them. The woman is still hospitalised with second- and third-degree burns over 20 per cent of her body.
Some 200 rioters witnessed the attack on the bus, then laid waste a nearby social centre.
Two of the more dramatic attacks on Thursday night included the burning of a large warehouse holding carpets and flooring materials at the Garonord industrial zone near Roissy airport, and the destruction of 27 buses in a depot at Trappes, southwest of Paris. Witnesses said flames shot 50m (164ft) into the air, amid repeated explosions.
Despite tough talk by prime minister Dominique de Villepin, the government seems powerless to stem the worst urban violence in France in decades.
"I will not allow organised gangs to make the law in the suburbs," Mr de Villepin said.
Some of his former supporters appear to be deserting embattled interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who had hoped to win favour with immigrants by advocating affirmative action and the right to vote for non-citizen residents in local elections.
"The statements by Sarkozy about cleansing (the housing projects) and scum are his personal responsibility, certainly not that of the police," Lucien Cozzoli of UNSA, the biggest union for French policemen, told Libération newspaper. The socialist deputy Julien Dray told a press conference that even "Sarkozy's resignation would not solve the problem of the banlieues."
Marine Le Pen, daughter of the extreme right-wing National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, called for a state of emergency to be declared in the worst-hit areas.
In 2003, Mr Sarkozy gutted the police de proximité (community policing) system set up by the previous socialist government, saying the network of local commissariats worked "to the detriment of police who investigate and make arrests".
This week, mediators from Clichy-sous-Bois (the town where the riots started), elected officials from Seine-Saint-Denis (the surrounding department), and the socialist opposition demanded that the police de proximité be re-established.