Sarkozy's tough talk rekindles riot fears

While police fear a return to the riots of last year, Nicolas Sarkozy has been fuelling the fire. Picture / Reuters

PARIS - Renewed pessimism and fears of an imminent eruption of violence have returned to darken the mood in France's grim suburban housing estates, where riots last year ignited a prolonged national crisis.

After a summer lull, the questions of racial and religious integration, poverty, delinquency and police tactics raised by the country's worst surge of violence in a generation have surged anew. And some issues have become even more pressing as the French presidential elections near and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, advocate of a muscular response to the predominantly Arab and African youths involved in the unrest, gears up his campaign for the vote.

The violence began on October 27 last year in the bleak Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after two teenagers were electrocuted and a third suffered major burns when they hid in an electrical substation to escape police.

The unrest spread to more than 300 towns and cities, affecting council estates of apartment blocks built in the 1960s and 1970s to house immigrants for France's economic boom.

The Government declared a state of emergency, including curfews for unaccompanied minors, to get the three-week crisis under control. The economic damage from shops, schools, buses and cars put to the torch, was put at $500 million.

Police are now warning of a resurgence of attacks, this time by well-armed and well-organised groups.

There have been three major clashes in the Paris suburbs this month, including an ambush last weekend in the town of Epinay-sur-Seine where three policemen in a patrol car were set upon by 50 youths with stones, steel bars and a gun. The police used "flashball" stun weapons and fired their guns into the air to fend off their attackers, but were only rescued when reinforcements arrived.

One officer was hospitalised, needing 30 stitches to his face.

"There has been a change over the past month. It's like they want to kill," said Bruno Beschizza of police union Synergie.

According to Interior Ministry figures, there were 480 attacks on police and other representatives of public services in September, an increase of 30 per cent over August.

The half-term school holiday, the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the impending first anniversary of the two deaths, which will feature a silent march and a rap concert to promote a benefit album called Mort Pour Rien (Dead for Nothing), are all factors that could help make the suburbs explode again, with the death of a policeman or rioter providing the potential spark.

But one of the biggest sources of dynamite is the presidential election campaign. With the vote only six months away, Sarkozy has declared the "cleanup" of the suburbs as his rallying cry, and is stepping up high-profile snatch operations and patrols by CRS riot police and gendarmes.

"Sarko" is loathed by youngsters on the estates, his political rivals accuse him of grandstanding, and grass-roots workers say his tough talk and the tactics of routinely stopping and questioning young men in troubled areas is inflaming sentiment.

"Sarkozy has been campaigning on security ... and you see the results," said Socialist Party chief Francois Hollande, noting that the tally of assaults in France rose by 6.2 per cent in the year to September.

The attack in Epinay "was a primal act ... that occurred in a climate of verbal provocation and a frequent lack of respect by police", said Ahmed Hacene, member of a residents association set up after last year's riots.

On the positive side, the suburbs were quiet during the summer and unemployment is edging down nationally, making it easier for jobless youths to find work. Programmes are under way to boost education prospects, improve housing and transport and tackle discrimination.

Celebrities, inspired by the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s, are campaigning to encourage young people to register as voters, but with patchy results.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has given a gritty warning, insisting the combination of firm policing and incentives for alienated youngsters is the right course of action but admitting the suburbs remained, for now, perilously unpredictable.

"We have to be clear in our minds. There is always the risk that incidents may spiral. We have to be vigilant and step up the policies we've launched in these areas," said de Villepin, adding: "There's no magic bullet."