PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy dispatched riot police yesterday to reopen fuel depots blocked by strikes against pension reform, as the pipeline to Paris airports was cut and all of France’s oil refineries shut down.

France’s storm of rioting lost strength today with a drop of nearly half in the number of car burnings, police said. But looters and vandals still defied a state of emergency with attacks on stores, a newspaper warehouse and a subway station.

Rioters shrugged off emergency laws that took effect today, as they looted and burned two superstores, set fire to a newspaper office and paralysed France’s second-largest city’s subway system with a firebomb.