Sarkozy unveils plan to stop suburb riots

Thousands more police officers are to be put on patrol in run-down French suburbs that have been the source of mass riots across the country.

Announcing the reinforcements today, President Nicolas Sarkozy also promised major investments for the neglected areas.

Mr Sarkozy unveiled a much-anticipated, far-reaching plan for reinvigorating suburban housing districts and integrating their young people, of immigrant origin, into mainstream French society.

The conservative, tough-talking president stressed security measures. He announced the deployment of 4,000 more police to the suburbs over the next three years and declared a “war without mercy” against drug traffickers.

“We will put an end to the law of gangs, the law of silence, the law of trafficking,” he said, by installing new “intervention teams” mobilised day and night against an underground economy “poisoning the lives of the neighbourhoods.”

Mr Sarkozy also announced plans to bus students to schools in different areas to better mix social classes and races, a subject often taboo in “egalite”-focused France.

“Together we will build a France proud of its diversity,” he said, adding that young people should not have difficulty getting work because of the colour of their skin.

The riots in 2005, a three-week explosion of car burnings and other violence in districts nationwide, woke up the country to the seething anger among youths over discrimination, joblessness and alienation.

Many of the rioters were Arab or black, French-born children or grandchildren of immigrants from France’s former colonies.

Mr Sarkozy, as interior minister before his election as president last year, angered many people in the housing projects by calling youth delinquents “scum” and through his crackdowns on immigration.

But during his election campaign, he pledged a solution for France’s suburbs, and gave Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara the job of producing it.

She announced outlines of it last month, but Mr Sarkozy wanted changes and the plan released today appeared to have several new measures.