Paris police outlaw public meetings in bid to stop riots

The Scotsman
Nov. 12, 2005

POLICE have banned all public meetings in Paris likely to provoke further riots following fears of a resurgence in violence in the French capital.

Parisian police say the ban was decided after calls for "violent acts" in Paris were intercepted from e-mail and text messages.

The move - imposed under new emergency measures - came into force this morning and is expected to last until tomorrow evening.

France's worst unrest in decades is dying down, but clashes between rioters and police persisted last night as more than 380 cars were set on fire, resulting in 162 people being arrested and detained across the country.

Authorities said that messages had surfaced urging the continuation of violence in the capital over the weekend, and, as a precaution, they had bolstered security in Paris.

Truckloads of riot police were deployed yesterday as President Jacques Chirac rode in an open jeep down the Champs-Elysees to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I.

More than 700 police were brought into the capital to bolster security, raising the full deployment to 2220.

Paris police headquarters later banned any gatherings of "a nature that could provoke or encourage disorder".

A police spokesman said: "Messages distributed in the last few days over the internet and by text messaging have called for gatherings on November 12 in Paris and 'violent actions'."

A police officer suffered second degree burns after a firebomb was thrown into his vehicle, spraying him with flaming petrol, in the northern town of Saint-Quentin, national police spokesman Patrick Reydy said.

Elsewhere, vandals shut down a power substation last night, plunging parts of the northern city of Amiens into darkness for more than an hour.

Four individuals were arrested in Toulouse early today for possessing more than 19 gallons of fuel, Mr Reydy said.

And an unidentified attacker threw two firebombs into a mosque in the southern town of Carpentras during yesterday's Friday prayers, causing minor damage.

It was not immediately clear if the mosque attack was linked to the rioting.

There have been renewed calls for peace throughout France and several hundred people gathered at the glassy Wall of Peace near the Eiffel Tower yesterday to plead for an end to the unrest. The demonstration drew elderly Parisians and youths from the suburbs, along with curious onlookers, all engaging in heated debate over how to stem the violence and tackle the causes.

Authorities have acknowledged that the roots of the problem are deep-seated.

The key issues include soaring unemployment, poverty and discrimination in the working-class suburbs that ring the large cities of France.

"The violence of the last 15 days expresses the frustration of 30 years of denying recognition to the populations living in these neighbourhoods," said Hassan Ben M'Barek, a spokesman for Suburbs Respect, a group of associations that organised Friday's demonstration.

He asked President Jacques Chirac and the government to listen carefully to the youths, whose roots are in former French colonies of Africa, including Muslim North Africa, to better fight the "discrimination they suffer daily".