Gun Control in France

PARIS, France (CNN) -- The Paris suburbs were again rocked by riots after a second night of lawlessness Monday caused widespread destruction and left scores of police injured, according to French authorities and media reports.
An angry mob repeatedly clashed with riot police and torched cars and buildings in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, after two teens on a motorcycle were killed following a collision with a police car Sunday night.
Rioters bombarded police with baseball bats, Molotov cocktail bombs and bottles filled with acid as the violence spread to the nearby towns of Longjumeau and Grigby Monday night.
The 15- and 16-year-old boys, both sons of African immigrants, according to police, died when their motorbike hit a patrol car in Villiers-le-Bel.
Some residents, populated largely by immigrants and their French-born children, accused police of fleeing the crash scene. However, three eyewitnesses, interviewed on TV, said the police stayed and tried to revive the two boys with mouth to mouth resuscitation. Watch why a repeat of past rioting is feared »
More than 60 police officers were injured in Monday night's confrontation, with five kept in hospital in a serious condition, according to reports in a number of French newspapers.
A spokesman for the police authorities in the Val d'Oise prefecture refused to confirm the numbers of police injuries, telling CNN that police feared the information could further enflame the already tense situation.
The police spokesman said 60 cars, a library and car dealer's showroom had been set on fire in Villiers-le-Bel. He said a police station had also been damaged and 15 garbage cans torched.
Security was tightened Tuesday, with helicopters deployed to patrol over the town, the spokesman said.
Villiers-le-Bel was not among the districts hit by the weeks of nationwide rioting in November 2005, when disaffected youths nationwide set thousands of cars ablaze to protest against unemployment and discrimination.
Those riots were also sparked by fatalities, namely the deaths of two men of North African descent who were electrocuted while hiding from police in an electrical substation.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, then serving as the interior minister, provoked controversy at the time by referring to the rioters as "scum."
Sarkozy, currently on a state visit to China, had urged residents Monday to "cool down and let the justice system determine who is responsible for what." A spokesman for the president's office told CNN Tuesday they were continuing to monitor the situation.
The prosecutor's office in the nearby town of Pontoise has already begun an inquiry into the deaths.
Police said the teens drove through a red light without wearing helmets and on an unregistered bike.
But Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the victims, told French media the police involved should be arrested. "Everyone knew the two boys here," he told French radio. "What happened, that's not violence, it's rage."
According to the initial findings from the French police watchdog, reported Tuesday in the daily newspaper, Le Figaro, the boy's motorbike was driving "at very high speed" and had failed to give priority to the police patrol vehicle.
The police car was driving normally at around 40 kilometers an hour, the newspaper reported the watchdog had foun

Police and Protesters Clash Near Paris
By KATRIN BENNHOLD
Published: November 28, 2007
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France, Nov. 27 ?- Dodging rocks and projectiles, the police lined the streets of this tense suburb Tuesday where angry youths have vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of two teenagers who died in a weekend collision with a police car.
Police union officials warned that the violence was escalating into urban guerrilla warfare, with shotguns aimed at officers ?- a rare sight in the last major outbreak of suburban unrest, in 2005.
More than 80 have been injured so far ?- four of them as a result of gunfire ?- and the rage was still simmering Tuesday afternoon. Inside the city hall of Villiers-le-Bel, a group of visiting mayors appealed for calm while police officers dodged rocks outside.
"We are sitting targets," said Sophie Bar, a local police officer who stood guard outside. "They were throwing rocks at us and it was impossible to see where they came from. They just came raining over the roof."
The violence was set off by the deaths of two teenagers on a motorbike who were killed in a crash with a police car Sunday night. The scene, with angry youths targeting the police mostly with firebombs, rocks and other projectiles, was reminiscent of three weeks of rioting in 2005.
But senior police officials warned that the violence was more intense this time.
"Things have changed since 2005," said Joachim Masanet, secretary general of the police wing of the UNSA trade union. "We have crossed a red line. When these kids aim their guns at police officers, they want to kill them. They are no longer afraid to shoot a policeman. We are only on the second day since the accident, and already they are shooting guns at the police."
Some young men stood by the charred timbers of the town's police station, laughing and surveying the damage.
Cem, 18, of Turkish origin, declined to give his name because he feared police reprisals. But he and his friend Karim, of Algerian descent, said they both had participated in rioting over the past two days.
"That's just the beginning," Cem said. "This is a war. There is no mercy. We want two cops dead."
Karim added: "The police brought this on themselves. They will regret it."
Six of the officers hurt in the clashes Monday were in serious condition, according to Francis Debuire, a police union official. Four were wounded by gunfire, including one who lost an eye and another who suffered a shattered shoulder.
The biggest risk, the police say, is that the violence will spread. In 2005, unrest cascaded through more than 300 towns, leaving 10,000 cars burned and 4,700 people arrested.
As night fell in Villiers-le-Bel, the anxiety was evident. Strangers warned people to hide their cellphones because youths were snatching them on the street. People hurried to their homes, while some gathered in knots on street corners. Police helicopters circling public housing developments spotted stockpiles of rocks stacked along the roofs.
Naim Masoud, 39, a teaching assistant in Villiers-le-Bel, said that, in her school, even 8-year-old children talked about racism and discrimination by the police.
"It will take a lot more than riot police to cure this neighborhood," she said. "These children feel like foreigners. It is inexcusable what they are doing, but the seeds are deep."
Some of the fiercest clashes Monday took place near a bakery where one of the dead, a 16-year-old known only as Larami because his identity has not been made public, was an apprentice.
Habib Friaa, the owner of the bakery, said Larami had been highly regarded. He was stunned, he added, to learn Monday about his death.
"It's quite something to say goodbye to somebody on Saturday and learn two days later that he died. We're like a family here because we're a small business," Mr. Friaa said, noting that Larami "was not a delinquent. He was somebody who was learning our profession and he was serious."
Ariane Bernard contributed reporting from Villiers-le-Bel.

You have no thoughts of your own. You copy-and-paste this guff from far-right sources, disguised by tinyurls, but it only makes you sound like an obsessive buffoon. Get a life. Don't they have any girls in your trailer park?

...Some of the fiercest clashes Monday took place near a bakery where one of the dead, a 16-year-old known only as Larami because his identity has not been made public, was an apprentice.

Why don't you put ypur own country in order before spouting nonsense about a country you clearly know very little about?

Even the girls in trailor parks in America take baths once a day...

Why don't you put your own country in order before spouting nonsense about a country you clearly know very little about?

In every cloud there's a silver lining, as the song goes...

This ongoing civil strife in France/Paris suburbs may just get some Americans to enjoy a nice vacation in the U.S., rather than spend American dollars in France.

Foofie wrote:

In every cloud there's a silver lining, as the song goes...

This ongoing civil strife in France/Paris suburbs may just get some Americans to enjoy a nice vacation in the U.S., rather than spend American dollars in France.

Americans are going to have to go back to France shortly enough, but not as tourists:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59054

Anybody who thinks we're not going to have to go back over there to rescue these idiots a third time isn't paying much attention.

Lifting out this post on one of the Paris riots threads as a separate question, because [..] I don't want to import the US political discussion into a thread about France; but it is a question that made me think, and I still don't really have a conclusive answer.

nimh wrote:

Random fact of the day:

Number of people who died in the 1992 LA riots:

52.

(That's the correction given in this Francosceptic story to the "200 people" cited by French finance minister Thierry Breton, who was urging for "perspective".)

Number of people who died in the France-wide riots so far:

1.

Anyone any suggestions on how to explain the difference?

The nature of the riots? Those involved? Gun control?

The evidence of the second night's rioting - more than 80 policemen injured by shotgun and airgun pellets, including four seriously - suggests that the level of urban violence has ratcheted up alarmingly. Few guns were used during the three weeks of nationwide riots in 2005.

On Monday night, the youths [..] attacked the police head on. In 2005, there were thousands of incidents of arson but few direct confrontations.

gungasnake wrote:

Foofie wrote:

In every cloud there's a silver lining, as the song goes...

This ongoing civil strife in France/Paris suburbs may just get some Americans to enjoy a nice vacation in the U.S., rather than spend American dollars in France.

Americans are going to have to go back to France shortly enough, but not as tourists:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59054

Anybody who thinks we're not going to have to go back over there to rescue these idiots a third time isn't paying much attention.

I liked the article. However, what would be nice is if this time the Germans come to save France.