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October 23, 2006

France: Police Preparing For Replay Of Paris Muslim Riots

Last year on Thursday, October 27, people took to the streets to protest at the deaths of two Muslim youths. Two days earlier, three youths in the northeastern Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois saw a group of police, and ran. The police, who were questioning a group of other youths who had broken into a building site, denied that they had given chase to the three Muslim youths. The three climbed an eight foot wall, to hide inside an electricity sub-station. They hid inside a turbine. As a result, all three became electrocuted. Two of the youths, 17-year old Ziad Benna and 15-year old Banou Traoré died, and the third, Metin, was hospitalized.

What followed was the worst rioting that Paris had seen since the 1960s. By the time the civil unrest had officially ended on November 21, more than 9,000 vehicles had been incinerated, along with countless garbage bins. Hundreds of police and firefighters had been injured. Some had been shot. Public buildings, including synagogues and Jewish schools had been burned by the predominantly Muslim rioters.

The riots had spread within the first fortnight to include several other towns, including Dijon, Amiens, Arras, Lille, Brest and Toulouse. Imitations of the rioting had taken place in Belgium, in Antwerp and Ghent. A church had been set on fire in Drome in the south of France, and at least two mosques had been attacked in retaliation. The worst incident occurred when a 56-year old disabled woman was set alight on a bus in Paris within the first week of the disturbances. She had petrol poured on her, and received 20% burns.

Since then, there have been threats of a resurgence of the civil unrest. On May 29, riots broke out in the suburb of Montfermeil, Paris. About 100 youths armed with sticks and baseball bats fought police and tried to attack the home of the mayor, Xavier Lemoine. In April, Lemoine had introduced anti-hoodlum measures, prohibiting gatherings of more than three youths at any one time in the town center of Montfermeil. The youths shook the gates of his home and smashed windows. The rioting continued for another night, and then died down.

On Tuesday, September 17 youths ambushed a riot police (Compagnies Republicaines de Securite, or CRS) vehicle in Corbeil-Essonnes in the southeast of Paris, as they patrolled the Les Tartarets housing project. The two people from the vehicle were beaten and one (pictured) was hospitalized.

On Sunday, October 1 seven police officers were injured in clashes with youths in Les Mureaux, in the western outskirts of Paris.

On October 5, the Telegraph reported that the head of a police union, "Action Police", stated that: "We are in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists. This is not a question of urban violence any more, it is an intifada, with stones and Molotov cocktails. You no longer see two or three youths confronting police, you see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."

"We need armoured vehicles and water cannon. They are the only things that can disperse crowds of hundreds of people who are trying to kill police and burn their vehicles."

On October 13 at Epinay-sur-Seine, another Parisian suburb, another police patrol was ambushed by youths wearing masks. three police were subjected to the attack. One needed 30 stitches to his facial injuries after being struck by a rock. In Aulnay-sous-Bois on October 20, two police vehicles were attacked with stones, iron bars and molotov cocktails. One police officer required stitches to a head wound.

The signs of violence are increasing. On Sunday at Grigny in Paris, a bus from the public transport group RATP was set on fire and destroyed (pictured, below left), along with three cars. 30 youths had surrounded the bus, ordered its passengers to dismount, and torched it. Fire-fighters who tried to put out the blaze were pelted with stones. Two people were arrested, including a 13 year old.

Yesterday, Associated Press stated that for the first six months of this year, there had been 2,458 incidents of violence against police nationally, compared to 4,246 in the whole of 2005.

Today, the French newspapers Le Figaro and Le Monde carry articles warning that police fear that riots on the scale of those which took place last year are ready to flare up again.

In one article from Le Figaro, voices the concerns of the French General Intelligence Agency (Renseignements Généraux or RP). These have compiled a 17 page document entitled: "Inventory of issues in the sensitive districts." The report states that the conditions which caused the riots last year are still in place and highlighted their concerns for the Île-de-France region. This is the area of greater Paris in the south, including districts such as Essonnes, which saw large amounts of arson and physical assault on officers last year.

For the past fortnight, the ministry of the interior has been on high alert, and warning that the slightest slip-up, even verbal, could ignite the powderkeg of unrest.

The RG warns that much responsibility for potential rioting lies in the hands of the media. It mentions a persistent rumour that journalists are scouring the estates in the suburbs, looking for incidents of unrest to report on, thus adding to the tensions.

They also point to the upcoming school holiday of All Saints' Day (All Hallows, on November 1), combined with the end of Ramadan, as days of potential unrest. On November 1, "many urban young people will be left to their own devices and will have greater freedom to cause unrest." RG states that the end of Ramadan, tomorrow, will invoke "a certain tension in the young people".

RG notes that the initial focus of last year's rioting soon became blurred, and observe that "there is no solidarity between districts". They state that there is no proof that the youths have an organized agenda, and claim that notions that the rioters kept each other informed via weblogs was a product of the imaginings of a few "idealists" of solidarity whose notions collide with the interests of those in the underground economy.

Le Monde questions the ways that reporting of the problems of the "Banlieues" has changed over the past year. Media treatment of incidents against police appear at first sight to be no different, states Jean-Marie Charon, a sociologist from a think-tank entitled "Discussions on Info". He states that the media is still lacking a sufficiently detailed and analytical approach to the long-term issues affecting the troubled suburbs.

Media which have dedicated teams or who report on the suburbs when there is no crisis still remain the exception, Charon states. Herve Guilbaud, French editor of Agence France Presse news agency says that the banlieues "are a world in their own right, which has its codes, its rules. We are possibly a bit more vigilant. We examine all the sparks. We try to take a low profile, so as not to be instrumental (in events), particularly in this pre-election period." AFP has "a network of reporters comprising 8 journalists stationed in the suburbs, with an additional reserve of advisors and freelance journalists. This set-up has not changed. But even with this set-up we are not necessarily ultra-powerful."

Le Monde also discusses the findings of the RG., as does Nouvel Observateur, both drawing on the information leaked in Le Figaro. The RG suggested to the prefectures of potential risk areas that there should be youth facilities available at night in the suburbs, so that young people have somewhere to go other than the streets. RG also recommended that garbage can collections should take place during the days when expected unrest may develop. These were frequently set on fire last year.

Additionally, the RG recommends that all unused cars should be removed from trouble spots. In the event of trouble, residents' associations must be used to relay calls for calm.

It also notes that the incidence of youth crime has increased this year, with 50,000 incidents carried out by young people in the first six months of 2006. In the region of Seine-Saint-Denis, which saw the first outbreaks of rioting last year, there have been marked increases of attacks against persons and property, and note that increasingly young delinquents are seeking to directly challenge the representatives of authority.

In another article, Nouvel Observateur discusses an incident which took place at Aulnay-sous-Bois in the Seine-Saint-Denis district.

Police heard reports of an explosion in the area on Saturday night around 11.30 pm, and when they arrived, flaming projectiles were thrown at them by about 15 youths. A 17 youth was questioned. As police went to question another youth, a second explosive device placed in a container caused flames to shoot 30 feet into the air, stated witnesses. Police reinforcements were called, and with the intervention of 50 CRS and police, calm was restored. No police were injured in what one officer described as an ambush. Aulnay-sous-Bois has about 20,000 people under the age of 25 living there. The suburb is generally regarded as peaceful.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 23, 2006 10:27 AM

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Posted by: Hungarian Crusader at October 23, 2006 8:35 PM

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