 France will impose curfews under a state-of-emergency law and call up police reservists to stop rioting that has spread out of Paris' suburbs and into nearly 300 cities and towns across the country, the prime minister said Monday, calling a return to order "our No. 1 responsibility."
| And it hasn't even taken two weeks to realize that... |
The tough new measures came as France's worst civil unrest in decades entered a 12th night, with rioters in the southern city of Toulouse setting fire to a bus after sundown after ordering passengers off, and elsewhere pelting police with gasoline bombs and rocks and torching a nursery school. Outside the capital in Sevran, a junior high school was set ablaze, while in another Paris suburb, Vitry-sur-Seine, youths threw gasoline bombs at a hospital, police said.
| "We don't need no edu-cay-shun... No hospital treatment, either." |
Asked on TF1 television whether the army should be brought in, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin blanched and said, "We are not at that point."
| "Non, non! Certainment not!" |
But "at each step, we will take the necessary measures to re-establish order very quickly throughout France," he said. "That is our prime duty: ensuring everyone's protection."
| "However, we are being entirely reactive. We are being careful not to assess the situation, lest we see something that might frighten us." |
The recourse to curfews followed the worst overnight violence so far, and foreign governments warned their citizens to be careful in France.
| "Think about Kosovo. It's safer." |
Apparent copycat attacks took place outside France, with five cars torched outside the main train station in Brussels. German police were investigating the burning of five cars in Berlin.
| "Fritz, I süspect it mäy be disäffected yoots!" |
National police spokesman Patrick Hamon said there was a "considerable decrease" in the number of incidents overnight into Tuesday in the Paris region.
| "We think they might be running out of gasoline. Some of the more recent Molotov cocktails were charged with diesel fuel, and we think one was cheap perfume!" |
Nationwide vandals burned 814 cars overnight compared to 1,400 vehicles a night earlier, according to national police figures. A total of 143 people were arrested down from 395 the night before.
| "Into le paddy wagon avec vous!" |
The mayhem is forcing France to confront anger building for decades in neglected suburbs and among the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants. President Jacques Chirac, in private comments more conciliatory than his warnings Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, acknowledged in a meeting Monday with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga that France has not integrated immigrant youths, she said. Chirac deplored the "ghettoization of youths of African or North African origin" and recognized "the incapacity of French society to fully accept them," said Vike-Freiberga.
| "Really, if they were invited into the best homes and treated like civilized folk, I'm sure they'd be just like you and me! Except for the turbans, of course." |
France "has not done everything possible for these youths, supported them so they feel understood, heard and respected," Chirac added, noting that unemployment runs as high as 40 percent in some suburbs, four times the national rate, according to Vike-Freiberga.
| "So really, you see, it's our own fault they're incapable of adhering to any social norms. Far from shipping their sorry derrieres back where they came from, we must do all we can to make life here easier for them. Then I'm sure they won't kill us all in our beds." |
In violence Monday, vandals burned churches, schools and businesses, and injured 36 police officers in clashes around the country, setting a new high for arson and violence, said France's national police chief, Michel Gaudin. "This spread, with a sort of shock wave spreading across the country, shows up in the number of towns affected," Gaudin said.
| "And it's our fault! It's all our fault," he added, beating his breast and weeping tears of frustration. |
In terms of material destruction, the unrest is France's worst since World War II — and never has rioting struck so many different French cities simultaneously, said security expert Sebastian Roche, a director of research at the state-funded National Center for Scientific Research. Villepin said curfews will be imposed under a 1955 law that allows the declaring of a state of emergency in parts or all of France. The law was passed to curb unrest in Algeria during the war that led to its independence.
| And now, coincidentally, will be applied largely to Algerians. No doubt someone wearing a turtleneck will write a long, introspective piece on the subject for publication in Paris Match. |
He said 1,500 reservists were being called up to reinforce the 8,000 police and gendarmes already deployed. The Cabinet will meet Tuesday to authorize curfews "wherever it is necessary," he said. "The multiplying acts of destruction, the destruction of schools and sports centers, thousands of cars set on fire, all of this is unacceptable and inexcusable. To all in France who are watching me, who are disturbed by this, who are shocked, who want to see a return to normalcy, a return to security, the state's response — I say it tonight forcefully — will be firm and just."
| I'll bet there are lots of people who believe that. Thousands of latter-day Madame Lafarges are no doubt getting out their knitting needles in anticipation of the tumbrels rolling. |
Villepin said "organized criminal networks" are backing the violence and youths taking part are treating it as a "game," trying to outdo each other. He did not rule out the possibility that radical Islamists are involved, saying: "That element must not be neglected." Local government officials will be able to impose curfews "if they think it will be useful to permit a return to calm and ensure the protection of residents. That is our No. 1 responsibility," the prime minister said.
| I'd suggest a nice massacre, myself. You've still got them outnumbered, you know... |
A Socialist opposition leader, Francois Hollande, said his party would closely watch to make sure the curfew law is applied properly. "This law cannot be applied everywhere, and it cannot be long-lasting," Hollande said. He said Villepin should have put more emphasis on improving life in tough neighborhoods and said the premier's proposals were vague.
| Of course they're vague. The man himself is so vague he's fuzzy around the edges. But if he made a definite statement the Champions of the Downtrodden™ like M. Hollande would be down on him like flies in an outhouse. |
Villepin said he wanted to speed up a $35.5 billion urban redevelopment plan, triple the number of merit scholarships for talented students and offer jobs, training or internships to disadvantaged young people. "We must offer them hope and a future," he said.
| Oh, good idea! Throwing money at problems always works... |
But nearly 600 people were in custody Monday night, and fast-track trials were being used to punish rioters.
| "Jean-Pierre, that is not a tumbrel! That is a Citroen!" |
France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organization, the Union for Islamic Organizations of France, issued a religious decree against the violence. It prohibited all those "who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others."
| That should do it. The disadvantaged yoots are bound to obey the dictates of the caliphate... |
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