Chirac Attacked Over Handling of Crisis(Too Harsh)
AP ^ | 11/08/05 | JAMEY KEATEN
Tuesday November 8, 2005
PARIS (AP) - French President Jacques Chirac's political rivals criticized his decision Tuesday to declare a state of emergency as ill-suited to quelling rioting. Others faulted Chirac for not taking a more prominent public role in managing the crisis. ``It's not enough to announce a curfew. There have to be security forces on the ground who can enforce it,'' said former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius.
Speaking on France-Inter radio, Fabius called curfews ``repressive.''
He and others on the political left said the government had not offered enough support to troubled suburbs and called for new social support and jobs programs.
Communist Party leader Marie-George Buffet warned that curfews could fan unrest by enflaming the rioters, adding that the government was ``incapable of stopping these youths.''
``I do not see how you can enforce the curfew,'' she told France-Info radio.
The leader of the center-right UDF party, Francois Bayrou, said the curfew was largely ``symbolic'' and of ``shock'' value, and criticized Chirac for distancing himself during the unrest.
Bayrou told RTL radio; ``there needs to be a little distance - but the absence of the president is remarkable.''
Chirac was keeping to his official schedule, hosting Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga on Monday and lunching Tuesday with Prince Albert II of Monaco. The president's first public comments on the rioting came Sunday - 10 days after it began.
Two leading police unions, in a joint statement, said they welcomed Chirac's emergency decree, saying it would ``give extra measures to police to ensure the law is respected.''
The head of France's largest teacher's union, Gerard Aschieri, attacked the declaration, saying it could come across as a ``message of war'' to youths across France.
``It's a very bad measure,'' he said. ``Symbolically, it's very serious to reactivate a law from the colonial era ... How will our colleagues who work in the suburbs be able to work with youths subject to this curfew?'' |
