FRANCE:The suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, saw a second night of urban guerrilla warfare between police and immigrant youths avenging two African boys who were killed in Sunday's collision between a motorbike and a police car. Violence broke out shortly after dark on Monday and continued until 1.30am yesterday.
Eighty-two police officers were injured, four of them seriously, in the six-hour battle on Monday night. One of the wounded policemen was hit with a high-calibre bullet. Police officers' unions say the violence is more dangerous than in the 2005 riots because youths are using more firearms.
On Monday night, the rioting spread to Sarcelles, Garges-lès-Gonesse, Cergy, Ermont and Goussainville, all communities north of Paris, near Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport.
Villiers-le-Bel, the epicentre, looked like a battle zone yesterday morning. The Louis Jouvet nursery school was a charred shell and stunned parents stood outside crying. The town's library, the Aldi supermarket, a hairdresser's, driving school and the tax office were also burned down. Sixty-three cars were torched.
The rioters hid their faces with scarves and cheered each time they saw a policeman fall. They siphoned petrol from cars and used bottles from bottle banks to make Molotov cocktails. Bricks and steel rods from building sites are also used as weapons. Some of the youths wore stolen riot police uniforms.
Le Monde newspaper's reporter saw a young man in a black tracksuit with a walkie-talkie tuned to the police frequency directing about 100 rioters, some as as young as 10.
President Nicolas Sarkozy returns from China this morning and will go directly to the hospital to visit the police commissioner who was shot on Sunday night. He will hold a special security meeting with the prime minister, minister for the interior and junior minister for urban affairs, Fadela Amara.
Ms Amara yesterday visited the homes of Moushin and Larami, the teenagers killed in the collision on Sunday. She had received instructions from the president's office to tell them of Mr Sarkozy's "solidarity with their grief and emotion".
Visiting the scene of Monday night's clashes, prime minister François Fillon said: "People who fire guns at police are criminals and will be treated as such."
Addressing police and firemen, he added: "We will not give up. We will fight with all the strength that the republic can give. You are the rampart of our republic."
Sébastien Roché, a sociologist who specialises in security, accused the government of "hushing up" the problem of the banlieues (outer suburbs) since the 2005 riots.
"You don't solve problems by ignoring them," he said. Racial discrimination and poor relations between police and the inhabitants of the immigrant suburbs were key causes, he added.
An "aggressive, offensive" police force equipped with stun guns and video surveillance drones was not the answer, he added.