France faces 'moment of truth' - PM

PARIS - France is wounded and faces a moment of truth, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has said following the country's 12th night of rioting.

The protests, blamed on racism and unemployment in rundown suburbs, receded in the Paris region after shots were fired at police the previous night but continued unabated in other parts of France.

"The Republic faces a moment of truth ... France is wounded. It cannot recognise itself in its streets and devastated areas, in these outbursts of hatred and violence which destroy and kill," Villepin told the lower house of parliament.

"A return to order is the absolute priority. The government has shown this. It will take all the steps necessary to ensure the protection of our citizens and to restore calm ... We see these events as a warning and as an appeal."

Five cars were torched in Brussels in what officials say could have been copycat attacks, but the rioting did not spread across the border. Even so, fears of riots erupting in other countries helped push down the value of the euro.

Villepin's conservative government adopted a decree at an emergency session under a 1955 law that allows regional government officials known as prefects to impose curfews if they consider it necessary.

The decree was due to take effect at 9am Wed NZ time, after the Interior Ministry decides where prefects can impose curfews not widely seen here since the Algerian war of 1954-1962.

Villepin said 1500 police would be brought in to back up the 8000 officers already deployed in areas hit by unrest involving poor white youths as well as French-born citizens of Arab or African origin complaining of racism.

Outlining his plans to parliament, he promised to accelerate urban renewal programmes and vowed to help young people in poor suburbs by reducing unemployment and improving their education opportunities.

President Jacques Chirac said the measures were needed to restore order but pressure is mounting on him and Villepin over France's worst unrest in decades. The president has said little in public about the violence, in which one man has been killed.

"The absence of the president is remarkable in this period we're going through," said Francois Bayrou, head of a centrist party that is critical of the conservative government.

Responding to Villepin's speech, Socialist Party deputy Jean-Marc Ayrault prompted boos from conservative deputies by telling parliament: "Your government, Mr Prime Minister ... bears heavy responsibility over this outburst of passions."

Mayors of riot-hit towns welcomed the government's tougher line. A town east of Paris imposed its own curfew on minors on Monday evening and another to the west of the capital organised citizens' patrols to help the police.

But some mayors asked what another measure announced by Villepin -- extended powers for them -- would mean in practice.

"Every time they announce more powers for mayors, they cut the funds," complained Jean-Christophe Lagarde, mayor of the northeastern Paris suburb of Drancy.
The opposition Socialists said Villepin had not done enough to give hope to those people in areas hit by the unrest.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan urged Turkish immigrants living in Europe to avoid getting caught up in riots. Influential Muslim cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi called for calm and urged the French government to address the root causes.

- REUTERS