Told you so....(*)
Second night of violence in Paris suburb
By Ariane Bernard
November 26, 2007
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France Dozens of youths clashed with the police for the second night in a row in a disadvantaged suburb north of Paris, throwing stones, glass and firebombs against large contingents of heavily-armed riot police officers and moving nimbly from target to target on several fronts, torching cars and a garbage truck.
The clashes began when two teenagers traveling on a motorbike died in a collision with a police car Sunday afternoon in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, about 12 miles north of Paris, in the Val d'Oise department. President Nicolas Sarkozy, in China on Monday on an official visit, appealed for calm.
Over a hundred youths had pushed riot police officers into the middle of a four-way intersection, raining projectiles on them from at least two directions. Police officers replied with tear gas and paint guns to mark the attackers for future arrest. Broken glass and used tear-gas canisters littered the road.
At least one police officer was wounded, and law enforcement officials at the scene were talking of an attacker using a shotgun on them. Within sight of the intersection, a garbage truck was on fire, apparently unattended as youths were lined up behind the truck.
At least 15 cars were burned down, with the police guarding the local fire department and moving in with them to protect firefighters as they put out fires. At least three buildings suffered some fire damage, including a library and a post office, a spokesman for the police in Val d'Oise said. Many of the youths had clearly planned their attack, having lined up garbage cans in the middle of the street.
"One gas tank, here," shouted one riot police officer, signaling to a blue gas tank sitting abandoned at the foot of a tree.
Later in the evening, as attackers were throwing projectiles at the center of the intersection, the situation got more confused, with the police trying to move away some of their vehicles so as not to serve as targets, while other officers tried to create moving shields to protect against the pelting.
"Journalists, take cover, take cover," said an officer as he ducked behind a police vehicle parked in the center of the intersection. Firecrackers could be heard exploding overhead. When a firebomb hit a garbage can, the youths could be heard cheering. Standing on the sideline of the battles, one youth was holding a makeshift poster of one of the two youths: "Deceased 25/11/07. Dead for nothing" A police car in one of the lanes going into the intersection remained on fire for a number of minutes before officers could shield some firefighters to put out the blaze.
Tear gas could be smelled from hundreds of yards away, and the police could only seem to be responding to the youths rapidly shifting positions. The two teenagers who died on Sunday afternoon were identified in the French media merely as 15 year-old Moushin and 16 year-old Larami, who were riding on a small motorbike, or 'dirt-bike,' in Villiers-le-Bel.
The circumstances that sparked the new violence are reminiscent of the accidental deaths of two teenagers in October 2005 in another Paris suburb that sparked a three-week wave of unrest across much of France. Mr. Sarkozy, who was interior minister at the time, made a name for himself by calling for tough measures against the youths involved.
The incidents on Monday night took place not far from where Moushin and Larami died, and followed other confrontations between youths and police on Sunday night.
Within an hour of the teenagers' deaths, bands of youths had begun to throw stones at the police car. Through the evening they burned down the police station in Villiers-le-Bel, four privately owned buildings, 28 cars and two dozen trash cans, the police said. A police officer suffered a punctured lung. Nine arrests were made, mainly in Villiers-le-Bel.
The violence spread to nearby Sarcelles, and some damage was reported in other towns.
The police had expected more unrest would take place tonight.
"We've talked to our colleagues from the domestic intelligence services, who themselves talked to their contacts, in particular in schools, and what they are hearing are the little brothers saying, 'My big brother told me to stay home tonight because they are going to destroy everything,"' Patrick Trotignon, who is in charge of the Paris area for the Synergie Officiers police union, said today in an interview.
The two deaths in Villiers-le-Bel recall the deaths of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, both teenagers, who were electrocuted in a power station in another suburb, Clichy-sous-Bois, in October 2005. The youths thought they were being chased by the police, although initially the police determined the deaths were an accident.
A later investigation found that police officers indeed chased the two youths on foot, though not as far as the power station. That incident led to the three-week civil unrest which eventually spread to many urban areas in France. Thousands of cars were burned and dozens of public buildings were set on fire. In the early evening of Monday, before the violence began in earnest, a group of mothers and girls were gathered at the foot of a building, watching a column of riot police officers nearby.
"They say it's an accident, but for me it's not an accident," said Jennifer Vandelannoitte, 22, who is unemployed. "Me, I'm telling you, they're going to pay. Really, it's not good." "No, it's not normal," said one of the mothers. "The youths, they are already full of hatred. I know it's not the solution to burn everything down, of course." The police authority for the Val d'Oise area described the accident on Sunday as a rather ordinary crash at an intersection.
"What is almost entirely sure is that it wasn't a chase with the youths, but that they crashed into each other at the intersection," said a police spokeswoman for the Val d'Oise region. "There is a theory that the youths ignored the right-of-way." Mr. Trotignon of Synergie Officiers said the kind of motorbike that was involved was not approved for road use. The damage to the patrol car was extensive, but that was consistent with the car traveling within the speed limit when it met the collision, he said.
Since the 2005 event, authorities have poured in funding to help the suburban areas which tend to suffer high unemployment rates.
In France's largely ethnic "banlieues," as they are called, youth unemployment is sometimes close to 50 percent.
Earlier this month, police found three gas cylinders loaded with screws and bolts in the troubled suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, north of Paris. One had been placed in a trash container which was later set ablaze, in what was considered to have been a trap for the police.
"There's an escalation," said Mr. Trotignon, speaking about the discovery of the gas cylinders in Aulnay in light of the events in Villiers-le-Bel. "It wasn't just to scare us off, it was to kill. And now we've got an officer who's got a perforated lung." Commenting on the violence on Monday afternoon, Mr. Trotignon said he feared it could spread to nearby towns. "We've been saying for eons that we're sitting on a powder keg," he said.
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