"Paris suburbs calm after street riots; Sarkozy promises tough penalties" by Nicolas Garriga/Associated Press November 29, 2007
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - Police patrolled Paris' troubled suburbs in force last night to watch for rioters who have torched buildings and cars in three nights of unrest, while President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed tough punishments for youths who shot at police.
The government of the Val d'Oise region north of Paris - the center of the unrest - reported a few scattered incidents of cars and garbage cans set on fire after nightfall, but said the situation was mostly calm. Three people had been taken into custody.
Keen to show things are under control, Sarkozy took a hard line against rioters who fired at officers with shotguns this week. Youths who used firearms "will find themselves in a criminal court," he said. "That has a name, it is attempted murder."
And what is invading a country called? You going with Bush on Iran, right?
Ten officers were injured by buckshot and pellets at the peak of violence Monday, national police have said. Police unions said about 30 officers were hurt. Prosecutors said they had opened a preliminary inquiry for attempted homicide in the cases.
The unrest has drawn comparisons to riots that raged nationwide for three weeks in 2005, and it shows that anger still simmers in poor housing projects where many Arabs, blacks, and other minorities live.
Yesterday, Sarkozy described the incident that sparked the latest violence - the deaths of two teenage boys killed Sunday in an accident with a police car in the Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel - as "distressing." But he insisted that was no excuse for the mayhem.
"So that things are very clear: What has happened is absolutely unacceptable," Sarkozy said after meeting with a police captain hospitalized in Eaubonne after returning from a trip to China.
Later the president met with families of the teenagers and told them a judicial inquiry had been opened into the deaths, their lawyer, Jean-Pierre Mignard, said.
Questions about the circumstances of the accident triggered the rioting in Villiers-le-Bel, a working-class town of low-rise public housing. The belief that police were at fault prompted rioters to burn down a library, preschool and several stores earlier this week.
A prosecutor has said the officers did not appear to have caused the crash, though officials are investigating."
The evasiveness makes me suspect the police were at fault!
"Sarkozy Pledges Crackdown on Rioters" by ELAINE SCIOLINO
PARIS, Nov. 28 — President Nicolas Sarkozy made a lightning strike into France’s troubled suburbs on Wednesday, visiting a wounded police captain and pledging afterward in front of the trailing television cameras to hunt down the attacking rioters and bring them to justice.
At 7:30 a.m., shortly after returning home from China, Mr. Sarkozy was at a hospital in Eaubonne, a suburb north of Paris, lending his support to the captain, who had been injured during clashes with rioters that started late Sunday.
“So that things are very clear: what has happened is absolutely unacceptable,” Mr. Sarkozy said outside the hospital. He added that those who fired shots at the police would find themselves in court. Their crime “has a name,” he said. “It’s attempted murder.”
He added, “We will find the shooters.”
After two nights of rioting Sunday and Monday, largely in and around the north Paris suburb Villiers-le-Bel, the situation eased Tuesday night after 1,000 antiriot police officers were deployed.
Mr. Sarkozy described the event that set off the violence — the death of two teenage boys whose motorbike collided with a police car in Villiers-le-Bel — as “not something that we can tolerate.” But he criticized those who seized on the episode to seek vengeance through violence.
And CUI BONO, readers? I'm smelling agent provocateurs!
“There’s no link between what happened with these perfectly innocent two young boys and shooting at public officials,” Mr. Sarkozy said.
So he says!
Mr. Sarkozy made no other stop in the suburbs and did not linger in Eaubonne, but his brief visit was symbolically important.
Yup, everything is a photo-op!
His performance as a zero-tolerance, law-and-order interior minister for his predecessor as president, Jacques Chirac, was much criticized by residents of France’s working- and lower-class suburbs, and during his presidential campaign he stayed away from the tough suburban neighborhoods that were consumed by three weeks of violence in late 2005.
During the campaign in April, for example, he abruptly canceled a visit to a neighborhood in the eastern city of Lyon as 100 protesters gathered there. Some brandished signs that read, “Sarkozy, you are not welcome here,” and others shouted, “Scum” and “Kärcher.”
“Scum” and “Kärcher” have come to be identified with Mr. Sarkozy and are emblematic of his difficult relationship with France’s ethnic Arab and African populations.
Not a surprising attitude coming from a Zionist!
France's President is a Mossad Agent
In 2005, he vowed to clean out young troublemakers from one Paris suburb with a Kärcher, the brand name of a high-powered hose used to wash off graffiti, and also pledged to rid poor neighborhoods of their “scum.”
He has never fulfilled his promise to return to the Paris suburb of Argenteuil, where he used the term “scum” and was pelted with bottles and rocks in 2005.
Later in the morning on Wednesday, Mr. Sarkozy met at the Élysée Palace with the families of the two teenagers who died in Villiers-le-Bel. Mr. Sarkozy told them he was opening a formal judicial manslaughter inquiry into the deaths, Jean-Pierre Mignard, a lawyer for the relatives, confirmed in a telephone interview.
A preliminary inquiry has exonerated the police of blame in the crash, but there are lingering questions about the response of the police afterward and how quickly help arrived.
There are always lingering questions, aren't there?
Because governments lie!
At least in one neighborhood of Eaubonne on Wednesday, Mr. Sarkozy was warmly welcomed.
“He’s doing a great job,” Jean-Claude Morard, 63, a retired window cleaner, said over coffee at a cafe. “He’s right to show others that he’s the boss. For once we have a good guy in power.”
Sig Heil!
But just down the street, in front of a McDonald’s, there was the residual distrust of Mr. Sarkozy that has long characterized his relationship with many suburban residents.
“It’s a show in the American style,” Marcel Lutz, 68, a retired printer, said of Mr. Sarkozy’s visit. He added: “He doesn’t need to be everywhere. We are not in a state of siege here.”
Outside a shopping center in Soisy-sous-Montmorency a few miles away, Carole Baron, 27, a worker in a beauty salon, characterized the visit as a temporary gesture at best.
Not fooleyed!
“Sarko’s visit might put people at rest after what happened two days ago, but to me, it won’t change anything,” she said, referring to the president by his nickname.
Prime Minister François Fillon told Parliament on Wednesday that the heavy police presence on Tuesday night had helped restore calm. “Last night, there were 1,000 security forces in the area,” he said, adding: “We saw the result. There was a very noticeable drop in violence in the district.”
Sig Heil!
Mr. Fillon said the government would invest nearly $18 billion in France’s troubled suburbs over the next five years, including more than $200 million in Villiers-le-Bel, where the latest violence started. The government expects to unveil a formal strategy for the suburbs in January."
Promises, promises.
You will be fighting Iran soon, so I wouuldn't expect this plan to get off the ground!