Looks like the French police may have some 'splainin' to do...
PARIS (AP) - Violence in France fell sharply overnight, the police chief said Thursday, one day after the government toughened its stance by imposing emergency measures and ordering deportations of foreigners involved in riots that have raged for two weeks.
In the past two nights, there was a notable decline in the number of car burnings - a barometer of the intensity of the country's worst civil unrest in nearly four decades.
National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said there was a "very sharp drop" in violence overnight. While youths have been battling riot police with rocks and firebombs, "there were practically no clashes with police," he said.
The government ordered a 12-day state of emergency that went into effect Wednesday in an effort to quell the rioting. Also, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said local authorities had been told to deport foreigners convicted so far for their roles.
A French anti-racism group, SOS-Racisme, called the measure illegal. The group's president said he had asked France's highest administrative body, the Council of State, to intervene.
"Nicolas Sarkozy's proposal is illegal," Dominique Sopo said.
SOS-Racisme said it considers Sarkozy's measure a mass deportation, while French law requires that each expulsion be studied on a case-by-case basis. The body has 48 hours to respond.
Police detained 203 people overnight, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. More than 2,000 people have been detained since the violence broke out. A municipal police officer and a firefighter were injured.
Eight police officers have been suspended for their suspected roles in Monday's beating of a young man in a town near Paris, national police spokeswoman Catherine Casteran said.
Two officers are suspected of dealing "unwarranted blows" to the man in La Courneuve, where unrest has broken out recently, Casteran said. The Interior Ministry said the six others were suspected of witnessing the incident. The victim had "superficial lesions" on his forehead and right foot, it said. |
Ahh... unwarranted blows. I'm sure the insurgent victim was just torching a shop strolling down the Champs-Elysés, minding his business. At this point I don't think rubber bullets would be enough to stop the rioters. Maybe they should try diplomacy. Do the rioters want to negotiate?
And what's with that torched-car barometer? Perhaps burning cars has become passé and to stay with current fashions and trends (let me practice some of my French here... ahem... la mode), the rioters are going for bigger targets like power stations and schools (same article):
Arsonists attacked again overnight, the 14th straight day of violence. However, car burnings fell again overnight to 482 from 617 the previous night, Hamon said. The peak in car arsons was overnight between Sunday and Monday, when 1,408 vehicles were torched. The number has steadily dropped every night since then.
This "is an encouraging sign that does not, however, diminish the police effort," Hamon said.
Overnight, vandalism at two power stations caused blackouts in parts of Lyon, France's second-largest city, police said.
Vandals set 11 cars ablaze and rammed a burning car into a primary school in the southern city of Toulouse, damaging its entrance, police said. Another school was set on fire in the eastern city of Belfort.
Violence, albeit on a much smaller scale, spilled across France's borders to Belgium, where rioters burned cars for a fifth straight night. Fifteen vehicles were torched, but the government said the attacks were isolated and could not be compared to the French riots. |
Looks like this conflict is slowly moving from the "riot" the MSM has labelled it to the intifada that the blogosphere believes it to be. Apparently that barometer doesn't register the destruction of major city targets as violence. I think they're going to need a new barometer or as the French would say, je pense qu'ils ont besoin d'un baromètre nouveau.
Mais oui!
UPDATE: More on the Franco-fada from FDD. |
