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Eighty French officers injured as Paris explodes into gun battles after teens die in police crash
November 2007
More than 80 police officers were injured in running battles with gangs of hooded youths as riots spread across the Paris suburbs early today.
In a second day of violence, the riots took a dramatic and potentially deadly new turn with the use of firearms against police.
Patrice Ribeiro, a senior police union official, said the violence overnight Monday to Tuesday was more intense than during three weeks of rioting in 2005.
Rioters hit the streets with smoke cannisters and wearing masks in the Paris suburbs
He said "genuine urban guerillas with conventional weapons and hunting weapons" were among the rioters.
The use of firearms added a dangerous new dimension. Guns were rarely used in the 2005 riots that spread to poor housing projects nationwide.
Police are facing "a situation that is far worse than that of 2005," said Ribeiro, national secretary of the Synergie officers union.
"Our colleagues will not allow themselves to be fired upon indefinitely without responding," he warned on RTL radio.
"They will be placed in situations which will become untenable."
Worst hit was Villiers-le-Bel, north of the capital, where two teenagers died when their motorbike collided with a police car on Sunday night.
Rampage: Dozens of youths clashed with police and set fire to buildings and cars
Omar Sehhouli, brother of one of the victims, accused police of ramming the motorbike and of failing to assist the victims.
The public prosecutor is investigating the officers involved for manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident but it did nothing to appease the mobs who took to the streets for a second night.
The officers were attacked with missiles including metal bars and Molotov cocktails.
Riot squads hit back with rubber bullets, tear gas, and paint canisters designed to identify troublemakers.
As President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed to "all sides to calm down and for the judiciary to decide who bears responsibility", there were fears of a repeat of the nationwide riots that led to a state of emergency being declared in autumn 2005.
The clashes broke out after two teenagers were killed when the motorcycle they were driving collided with a police car
Then the trouble was started by the deaths of two young men in an electricity substation as they tried to flee police in the Paris suburb of Clichysous-Bois.
After the latest incident in Villiersle-Bel, dozens of vehicles were set alight this morning in the wider Val d'Oise district.
A bus and a lorry were among the vehicles torched in nearby Longjumeau and Grigby.
About a dozen people forced the bus driver out of his vehicle before beating him up, said local police.
In Villiers-le-Bel itself, a pre-school, a library, a driving school and a beauty salon were destroyed by fire.
"It's a hugely dangerous situation,î said one officer. "It appears that these youths want to kill us."
Several policemen and a fireman were injured in the rioting
Some youths tried to pull down cables leading to street lamps in a bid to black out the area.
Police and politicians warn the French suburbs remain a "tinderbox" two years after the 2005 riots, which exposed France's failure to integrate its large black and Arab population.
"These neighbourhoods live in a state of permanent depression, but all it takes is one drop to make the depression boil over into anger," said sociologist Laurent Mucchielli.
Paris has one of the biggest immigrant populations in France, with many living on out-of-town estates, where the unemployment rate is as high as 50 per cent.