Paris<img src=newicons/spit.gif border=0 align=middle> is in danger of being overrun. Shocking! Shocking I say!
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europ ... index.html
France defends policies after riot
Monday, October 31, 2005 Posted: 1942 GMT (0342 HKT)
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Manage Alerts | What Is This? BOBIGNY, France (Reuters) -- French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy defended his tough crime policies on Monday after a fourth night of riots in a Paris suburb in which tear gas was fired into a mosque.
Sarkozy, addressing police officers, vowed to find how tear gas had been fired into the Muslim place of worship, an incident which had helped fuel the disturbances.
Youths hurled rocks and set fire to cars in the northeastern Clichy-sous-Bois suburb of the French capital, where many immigrants and poor families live in high-rise housing estates notorious for youth violence.
"I want these people to be able to live in peace," Sarkozy told reporters as he mingled with local residents outside the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture in Bobigny, which oversees Clichy-sous-Bois.
French television said six police officers were hurt and 11 people arrested in violence partly fueled by the incident at the mosque. Sarkozy promised an inquiry.
"I am, of course, available to the imam of the Clichy mosque to let him have all the details in order to understand how and why a tear gas bomb was sent into this mosque," he told about 170 police officers at the prefecture.
Sarkozy made his name by cutting crime figures during his first stint as interior minister from 2002 to 2004, and is trying to retain his popularity with voters ahead of an expected bid for the presidency in 2007.
He deflected criticism of his crime policies from the opposition Socialists, saying trouble had been brewing in Paris suburbs for years.
"For 30 years the situation has been getting worse in a number of neighborhoods," he said.
"I am perfectly aware that it is not in three days or in three months that we will make up for 30 years," he added, vowing to crack down on gangs and drug dealers in the suburbs.
Electrocution
The violence began four days ago after the deaths of two teenagers, believed to be of African origin, who were electrocuted after clambering into a power sub-station while apparently fleeing police.
Sixteen people were injured in violence on Friday and hundreds of residents marched on Saturday to appeal for calm and as a mark of respect for the dead teenagers.
Sarkozy offered to meet the youths' parents but it was unclear if the meeting would take place, aides said.
The Clichy riots were the latest in a series of incidents in the northeastern suburbs that have attracted the attention of Sarkozy and become the target of his vow to get tough on crime.
In June, an 11-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet in the northern area of La Courneuve. The eastern suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine made headlines in 2002 when a 17-year-old girl was set alight by an 18-year-old boy.
Sarkozy, who returned as the interior minister in late May, began a new crime offensive this month, ordering specially trained police to tackle 25 problem neighborhoods in cities throughout France.
Opposition politicians say he has made things worse.
Laurent Fabius, a former Socialist prime minister and also a potential presidential candidate in 2007, mocked Sarkozy's frequent visits to areas such as Clichy.
"When he announces that he's going to visit such and such a commune or suburb every week, that's not how we resolve those problems," Fabius told Europe 1 radio.
"We need to act at the same time on prevention, repression, education, housing, jobs ... and not play the cowboy."
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