Hollande promises crackdown after riots

Youths fired buckshot at police in clashes in the French city of Amiens overnight yesterday, setting cars and a nursery school alight in a resurgence of urban unrest that president François Hollande said he would do everything to confront.

Hollande dispatched his interior minister, Manuel Valls, to the northern city, where two nights of riots were apparently sparked by tension over spot checks by police on residents.

Officials said 16 police officers were hurt in the disturbances, some struck by buckshot, others hit by a hail of missiles thrown by about 100 youths who gathered in northern districts of Amiens. One officer was in a serious condition, the city’s Socialist mayor Gilles Demailly told Reuters.