Youths clash with police in latest French violence

PARIS - France imposed emergency measures today in 38 suburbs, towns and cities, but in a 14th night of violence youths clashed with police in the southwestern city of Toulouse and seven cars were burnt.

By 10.30pm (10.30am NZT), however, there were few other confirmed reports of unrest elsewhere in France. Authorities in the Paris area, scene of some of the worst violence, said it appeared calm compared to previous nights.

Some 350 police officers were on duty in tough neighbourhoods in Toulouse where four of the cars were burnt, authorities said. Three cars were set ablaze in the Val d'Oise area in the northwest of Paris.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin published a decree invoking a 50-year-old law that gives regional government officials the power to impose nightly curfews against the rioters, mainly protesting about unemployment and racism.

Authorities in Toulouse have not yet taken advantage of the emergency measures announced on Tuesday to halt the violence by white youths as well as French-born citizens of African and Arab origin.

A poll in Le Parisien newspaper showed 73 per cent support for the measures and 86 per cent of those surveyed said they were outraged by the violence.

Police and an aide to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said unrest that had spread across many of France's towns and cities and shaken the government appeared to be waning.

"We are seeing a sharp drop in hostile acts," the national police director, Michel Gaudin, told a news briefing.

A spokesman for the eastern Paris district of Seine-et-Marne told Reuters: "It's calm. The trouble is subsiding."

Fears of riots erupting in other European countries have helped push down the value of the euro. Neighbouring Belgium and Germany have been hit by copycat arson incidents but nothing large-scale.

Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson criticised France's response to the violence, saying emergency powers would not help to resolve the problems.

Major cities covered by the emergency powers include Marseille, Strasbourg, Lyon, Toulouse and the capital.

But in the Paris suburbs where the unrest erupted on October 27 with the deaths of two youngsters apparently fleeing police, the local prefect said he had decided against a curfew because of a decrease in violence.

The violence swiftly turned into a broader protest against racism, police treatment and poor job prospects.

Authorities in the Marseille region said children as young as 10 had been arrested since the beginning of the week.

- REUTERS