Media News

The clashes started last Thursday after Mauritania-born Traore Bouna, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, of Tunisia died as they ran from a soccer game after they saw police enter the area. A third teenager Muttin Altun, 17, was badly burned after all three were accidentally electrocuted as they hid in an electricity sub station in the northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois.

Tensions were already growing in the area after Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy declared "war without mercy" on violence in Paris suburbs. As a result he was pelted with stones and bottles while visiting suburb of Argenteuil.

Community tempers became flared after the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy claimed on the following Friday that the youths were not being pursued by police when they were electrocuted. French authorities say that officers were investigating a suspected burglary and not chasing the boys whilst youths in the neighbourhood state that the police chased the boys to their death. Sarkozy, who has also been accused of inflaming the crisis with his tough talk and aggressive police tactics called those involved in the clashes "scum" and vowed to "clean out" troubled suburbs.

On the Saturday several hundred people took part in a peaceful silent march to honour the two dead teenagers and protest about police treatment. At the event Claude Dilain, mayor of Clichy-Sous-Bois said "Thanks to you, France will now respect us more than this morning, before this silent march”.

But as the concerns of the deaths, police brutality and the dismal socio-economic conditions facing the 28,000 mainly North and West African residents was ignored by government, hundreds of mainly African French youths took to the streets again fighting with police, setting cars ablaze.

By Wednesday night at least 20 Paris-region towns were engulfed in the violent clashes. Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official for the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris said youths had fired four shots at riot police and firefighters but caused no injuries.

On Thursday morning traffic was halted on a suburban commuter line linking Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport after stone-throwing rioters attacked two trains overnight at the Le Blanc-Mesnil station. By night time amongst the buildings set ablaze were a primary school, a car dealership and a shopping centre. Several police officers and fire-fighters have been wounded.

On Sunday Oct 30 Six police were hurt in clashes outside Clichy as a police teargas grenade hit a mosque. Following this the families of the dead teenagers refused to meet Sarkozy, saying he is "very incompetent".

Ignoring the concerns of the African French community, the French Prime Minster Dominique de Villepin indirectly blamed the riots on gangs he claimed terrorized residents and sought to keep police out of their slums. He said “I refuse to accept that organized gangs are laying down the law in certain neighborhoods, I refuse to accept that crime networks and drug traffickers profit from this disorder, I refuse to accept that the strong intimidate the weak"

However, French anti-African groups have said they want to "stop the Islamization of France" and claimed that the problem stemmed from the "failure of a policy of massive and uncontrolled immigration" speaking of the mainly North and West African Muslims in the area.

In contrast Minister of Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had to react "firmly" but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to deal with anger simmering in poor suburbs for over thirty years.

Michel Thooris from Action Police CFTC called for help from the army to support police officers and said "There's a civil war under way in Clichy-Sous-Bois at the moment …My colleagues neither have the equipment nor the practical nor theoretical training for street fighting." Joaquin Masanet from the UNSA-Police union, which represents the majority of riot police, disagreed. "We're not at war," he said. "The police are capable of restoring order if we are given the material and human means."