‘More repression means more destruction’, said defiant French youths yesterday, in answer to the state-of emergency announced by Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy.
They said curfews ‘won’t change anything’, adding ‘more cops is just provocation, it won’t solve anything’.
The French government introduced a state of emergency giving curfew powers to regional authorities to stem urban violence which has raged for 12 nights, spreading from Paris to the whole of France.
Interior Minister Sarkozy announced the decision after an emergency Cabinet meeting chaired by President Jacques Chirac.
This followed more disturbances on Monday night which saw 1,173 cars set alight in 226 towns.
320 people were arrested in what was said to be a calmer night.
Incidents also flared in other European capitals on Monday night, Five cars were torched outside the main train station in Brussels while German police are investigating the burning of five cars in Berlin.
French President Chirac said the state-of-emergency is ‘necessary to accelerate a return to calm’, adding that security forces would get ‘supplementary’ help to put an end to the riots.
Sarkozy said that the measure, which came into effect from midnight last night, also allows police to carry out raids when they suspect weapons are being stored in homes and properties.
Appearing on national television late on Monda night, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said the curfew powers were being invoked under a 60-year-old law first brought in as an unsuccessful attempt to quell insurrection against French colonialism in Algeria.
Villepin said authorities would be able to impose them in areas ‘where necessary’ to restrict the movement of people and vehicles and to set up perimeters around certain troublespots.
He also said that 1,500 police and gendarme reservists would be deployed as reinforcements for 8,000 officers already on the ground, but ruled out any Army intervention.
Police have installed closed-circuit cameras in and around Paris and private security was also called upon in some areas, hired by the city to guard private and public property.
A town mayor near the epicentre of the riots, in the north-eastern Paris suburb of Raincy, has already imposed a municipal curfew from Monday to ‘avoid a tragedy’.
• Second news story
SADDAM TRIAL LAWYER KILLED
A lawyer for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, has been shot dead in Baghdad, while his colleague has been wounded.
Armed men are said to have opened fire on a car carrying both men, killing Adel al-Zubeidi and wounding Thamer Hamoud al-Khuzaye.
Fellow lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi said they were caught in an ambush in the Adil neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital at around 1pm local time.
The wounded man was taken to north Baghdad hospital.
The two lawyers were defending al-Tikriti, and former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, members of the defence team said.
Yesterday’s attack follows the killing of another defence lawyer last month.
