350 French police raid Paris housing estate

More than 350 police swept through a housing estate south of Paris today, arresting 19 people in an operation targeting suspects who attacked officers earlier this month.

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie had called the attack in Grande-Borne in Grigny an “ambush” on officers responding to a call about vandalism.

About 30 people, some armed, were waiting for the officers. Three police were hit in face with buckshot while another was hospitalised after being hit in the leg with buckshot and nails, officials said.

The sweep recalled a similar, though much larger, operation last month in Villiers-Le-Bel and neighbouring estates north of Paris, in which 35 people were detained in connection with riots that broke out there in November after two teenage boys were killed in a motorbike crash with a police car.