France: Muslim group orders halt to rioting

France's biggest Muslim fundamentalist organisation, the Union for Islamic Organisations of France, has issued a fatwa, or religious decree, in a bid to help quell riots which have seen nearly 1,000 arrested in recent days.

The fatwa forbade all those “who seek divine grace from taking part in any action that blindly strikes private or public property or can harm others”.

Nearly 1,000 people have been arrested since the violence broke out, said national police spokesman Patrick Hamon.

Ten police officers were injured by lead pellets in a clash with 250-300 youths in France overnight as rioting continued, but only two were taken to hospital with more serious injuries – to the neck and legs.

Arsonists burned two schools and a bus in the central city of Saint-Etienne and its suburbs, and two people were injured in the bus attack. Churches were set ablaze in northern Lens and southern Sete, he said. The extent of damage was not yet cear.

In Colomes in suburban Paris, youths pelted rocks at a bus, sending a 13-month-old child to the hospital with a head injury, Hamon said, while a daycare centre in Saint-Maurice, another Paris suburb, was burned.

Much of the youths’ anger has focused on law-and-order Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who inflamed passions by referring to troublemakers as “scum”.

In Strasbourg, youths stole a car and rammed it into a housing project, setting the vehicle and the building on fire.

“We’ll stop when Sarkozy steps down,” said the defiant 17-year-old driver of the car, who gave his name only as Murat. Under arrest, he and several others awaited a ride to the police station as smoke poured from the windows of the housing project behind them.

Sarkozy said he planned to visit the two police officers in hospital. It was unclear whether they were shot with hunting rifles or a less lethal weapon, the interior ministry spokesman said. One was wounded in the neck, the other in the legs.

The tough-talking interior minister said police must restore law and order to France, or gangs and extremists would fill the void.

“We will take the time we need, but order must return,” Sarkozy said.

The night before youths set ablaze nearly 1,300 vehicles and torched businesses, schols and symbols of French authority, including post offices and provincial police stations. That was a sharp rise from the 897 vehicles incinerated overnight from Friday to Saturday.

The violence has prompted soul-searching about how to ease anger and frustration among troubled youths in France’s grim public housing estates, where many residents are minorities. Educators met the French prime minister to think of ways to help.

“These are young people who are generally resigned, they face discrimination everywhere, for housing and work, and their malaise gets expressed in violence,” said Ahmed Touabi, principal of an elementary school in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. The troublemakers “feel rejected by France, and they want to spit on France”.