A country in flames
French cities teeter on the edge of anarchy
By Kim Willsher in Clichy-sous-Bois, Paris
(Filed: 06/11/2005)
In pictures: Paris burns after week of rioting
Gangs of youths were once again on the rampage across France last night as the guerilla warfare, which has engulfed a string of Paris suburbs for more than a week, took hold in cities throughout the country.
Firemen battle a warehouse fire in Aubervilliers, north of Paris
Firemen battle a warehouse fire in Aubervilliers
Rioters played cat-and-mouse with the police, swooping to set fire to buses, public buildings, shops, factories and in one case a crèche before disappearing, leaving a trail of destruction.
Yesterday, after a ninth consecutive night in which rioters boasted they had made parts of France "like Baghdad", more than 750 cars had been set ablaze, the highest tally on a single night so far.
Police arrested 203 people including a 10-year-old boy, who was caught clutching a bottle of petrol.
Over the past 10 days riots, arson attacks and violent clashes have spread from the notorious banlieues of Paris - the grim housing estates that are home to many of the country's large North African immigrant community - to the rest of the country.
Yesterday officials reported incidents erupting from Rennes in the west, to Toulouse in the south and Strasbourg in the east.
Despite a string of emergency meetings and the drafting of 1,500 members of the CRS riot squads into the Paris suburbs, police and politicians have failed to control the worst violence the city has experienced since the riots of May 1968.
In the early hours of yesterday, gangs of youths threw blazing rubbish bins across the streets and set fire to cars, many of which belonged to their own neighbours.
The acrid smell of burning rubber and refuse filled the air and plumes of flames shot skywards, their orange glow illuminating the grim high-rise blocks, which have become France's 21st century ghettos.
A burnt-out vehicle Aulnay-sous-Bois, north-east of Paris
A burnt van in Aulnay-sous-Bois, north-east of Paris
Above one desolate street on the outskirts of Paris, a helicopter clattered but firefighters were forced to watch helplessly as a car burnt itself out. Any attempt to approach it resulted in a terrifying hail of stones, Molotov cocktails and other missiles.
Elsewhere in France, fire officers were pelted with metal petanque balls, car batteries and even cooking pots.
The commander of Paris's 14th Fire Brigade, Captain Sébastian Lamoureux, said his force had adopted tactics learnt from its counterpart in Northern Ireland and launched their rarely used "Urban Trouble" plan.
Fire engines had been ordered not to leave their station without a support vehicle and a police escort, he said.
"We don't get involved unless there's a danger of the fire spreading. Otherwise we leave the vehicle or the rubbish bin to burn itself out."
The renewed violence erupted hours after Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, repeated calls for calm and summoned young representatives from the Paris suburbs to his office for talks.
"I think he appreciated meeting us and learnt something. It was a good initiative for him to take," said Anyss Arbib, one of the representatives.
"There needs to be better relations and communications between the police and the people in the banlieues."
Residents pass a burned car in Aulnay-sous-Bois
Residents pass a burned car in Aulnay-sous-Bois
The first violence was triggered after a routine police patrol in the district of Chêne-Pointu in Clichy-sous-Bois, north-east Paris. The districts of Clichy are typical of the outer-Paris sink estates, which are home to many second and third generation immigrant families. The French Fifth Republic expects them to bury their own customs in the name of integration and consequently they have discovered there is more liberté, egalité and fraternité for some than others.
Across France some 751 neighbourhoods, housing around five million people, are classified as severely disadvantaged. In Clichy, less than 10 miles from the chic Champs Elysées, half the 28,000 population is under 25 and unemployment is more than double the national average of 10 per cent.
The incident which triggered France's most violent convulsion for almost 40 years began on the evening of October 27, as police officers approached a group of youths, most of North African descent, returning from a football match. Some of them panicked and ran.
"We all do it. You don't hang around and wait to be pushed around or arrested for nothing," said one Clichy teenager.
Terrified that the police were chasing them, which the officers have denied, three fled towards an electricity sub-station. Ignoring the danger signs, they scrambled over 10ft walls topped with three rows of barbed wire. Minutes later two of them, aged 15 and 17, were electrocuted and died. Miraculously the third survived, but was seriously burnt. As word of the tragedy spread, the anger and frustration never far below the surface of the banlieues erupted. Angry youngsters have pledged to keep fighting so their friends did not "die for nothing".
Many of them also blame the tough-talking interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, for making matters worse. He has described the rioters as "scum" and threatened to "hose down" the estates to get rid of them.
"He's disrespected us, which is a declaration of war," one young man told the Sunday Telegraph as he surveyed one of Clichy's housing estates that was dotted with piles of ash and broken glass. "Those guys, our friends, died for nothing and we're being dissed. Someone has to say sorry."
Since then politicians, social commentators and journalists have been picking over France's failure to integrate its burgeoning immigrant population.
"The Republic is not keeping its promise of liberty, equality and fraternity," thundered the respected sociologist, Michel Wieviorka, in the Libération newspaper. "Cultural identities are not sufficiently recognised and there is no longer any mediation between the inhabitants of these areas and the politicians. It's a total crisis."
Yet while the violence has dominated French media all week, most citizens are otherwise unaffected by the tumult - an indication of just how detached from mainstream French life those living on the troubled housing estates have become.
This weekend, even residents sympathetic to the rioters called for a halt to violence. One 30-year-old Moroccan, whose car had been torched by local youths, said: "Obviously I'm angry with the youths who are burning the cars of people living in their own area."
Yet many agree that Mr Sarkozy is partly to blame. The interior minister was unrepentant, however. "This minority of hooligans and assassins must not be confused with the immense majority of youngsters in the banlieues," he said. "I refuse to let these organised gangs make the law. The Republican state will not give in."
