French agency warns of further rioting

A FRENCH police intelligence agency has warned that rioting could break out again in poor, multi-ethnic neighbourhoods around Paris one year after unrest swept the nation’s suburbs.

Le Figaro newspaper published the secret document the day after a mob of youths set a bus ablaze in broad daylight on the outskirts of Paris, and stoned police and firemen trying to put the flames out.

Bus drivers refused yesterday to take to the streets of the Grigny suburb, to the south of Paris, to protest against the assault, which shocked even hardened police. It was at least the fifth time in recent weeks that French youths have launched an apparently concerted attack on the security forces and the symbols of the French state.

“The attacks of the last few weeks show (the gangs) are very well prepared and using military-like organisation,” said Gaelle James with the Synergie-Officiers police union.

Le Figaro quoted the police General Intelligence (RG) agency as saying the conditions which led to the 2005 riots were still in place. “Today, a certain feverishness is very noticeable amongst some of the young . . . who are critical of the work of local organisations. (The violence) is no longer spontaneous but structured, aimed at . . . striking out at one of the last institutional representatives still present in certain places, the police.”

Rioters torched thousands of cars and destroyed hundreds of businesses in three weeks of nationwide rioting last year, which kicked off on October 27 after the deaths of two youths, who were accidentally electrocuted while trying to escape the police.

Human rights groups said the root causes of the 2005 riots were poverty, unemployment and discrimination and have demanded a concerted effort to improve life in mainly non-white ghettos. In the first six months of 2006, some 21,000 cars were burned out and some 2,882 attacks registered against the police, fire and ambulance services.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is the presidential favourite for the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, has responded to the recent upswing in violence by promising tougher sentences for young offenders.