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French rioting appears to lose strength
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-09 21:48
France's storm of rioting lost strength Wednesday, with
car burnings falling nearly by half, police said. But looters and vandals still
defied a state of emergency with attacks on superstores, a newspaper warehouse
and a subway station.
Riot policemen patrol the southern suburban
town of Le Kremlin-Bicetre near Paris, late Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2005. A
government-declared 12-day state of emergency began in riot-torn France on
Wednesday , giving cities and towns the power to impose curfew in response
to 13 nights of the country's worst civil unrest in decades.
Savigny-sur-Orge is among the French cities imposing a curfew for minors.
[AP] |
The extraordinary 12-day state of emergency, which went into effect Tuesday
at midnight, covered Paris, its suburbs and more than 30 other French cities
from the Mediterranean to the border with Germany and to Rouen in the north — an
indication of how widespread arson, riots and other unrest have become in nearly
two weeks of violence.
The emergency decree invoked a 50-year-old security law that dates to
France's colonial war in Algeria. It empowers officials to put troublemakers
under house arrest, ban or limit the movement of people and vehicles, confiscate
weapons and close public spaces where gangs gather. It also paved the way for
curfews in areas where officials feel they are needed.
Seventy-three percent of respondents in a poll published
Wednesday in daily Le Parisien said they agreed with the curfew.
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