French
police face permanent intifada
By JAMEY
KEATEN, Associated Press Writer Sun Oct 22, 6:15 PM ET
EPINAY-SUR-SEINE,
France - On a routine call, three unwitting police officers fell into a trap. A
car darted out to block their path, and dozens of hooded youths surged out of
the darkness to attack them with stones, bats and tear gas before fleeing. One
officer was hospitalized, and no arrests made.
The recent
ambush was emblematic of what some officers say has become a near-perpetual and
increasingly violent conflict between police and gangs in tough, largely
immigrant French neighborhoods that were the scene of a three-week paroxysm of
rioting last year.
One small
police union claims officers are facing a "permanent intifada."
Police injuries have risen in the year since the wave of violence.
National police
reported 2,458 cases of violence against officers in the first six months of
the year, on pace to top the 4,246 cases recorded for all of 2005 and the 3,842
in 2004. Firefighters and rescue workers have also been targeted — and some now
receive police escorts in such areas.
On Sunday, a
band of about 30 youths, some wearing masks, forced passengers out of a bus in
a southern Paris suburb in broad daylight Sunday, set it on fire, then stoned
firefighters who came to the rescue, police said. No one was injured. Two
people were arrested, one of them a 13-year-old, according to LCI television.
More broadly,
worsening violence in France testifies to Europe's growing struggle to
integrate its ethnic minorities. Some mainstream European politicians —
adopting positions previously confined largely to far-right fringes — are
suggesting that the minorities themselves are not doing enough to adapt to
European mores.
In Britain,
former Foreign Minister Jack Straw, now leader of the House of Commons, this
month touched off a wide debate about the rights and obligations of Muslims by
saying that he asks devout Muslim women to remove their veils when visiting his
office. Prime Minister
Tony Blair said Islam needs to modernize.
In France, a
high school teacher received death threats, forcing him into hiding, after he
wrote a newspaper editorial in September saying Muslim fundamentalists are
trying to muzzle Europe's democratic liberties.
Ethnic
integration and violence against police are both becoming issues in the
campaign for the French presidency. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the
leading contender on the right, said this month that those who do not love
France do not have to stay, echoing a longtime slogan of the extreme-right
National Front: "France, love it or leave it."
Michel Thooris,
head of the small Action Police union, claims that the new violence is taking
on an Islamic fundamentalist tinge.
"Many
youths, many arsonists, many vandals behind the violence do it to cries of
'Allah Akbar' (God is Great) when our police cars are stoned," he said in
an interview.
Larger, more
mainstream police unions sharply disagree that the suburban unrest has any
religious basis. However, they do say that some youth gangs no longer seem
content to throw stones or torch cars and instead appear determined to hurt
police officers — or worse.
"First, it
was a rock here or there. Then it was rocks by the dozen. Now, they're leading
operations of an almost military sort to trap us," said Loic Lecouplier, a
police union official in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris. "These
are acts of war."
Sadio Sylla, an
unemployed mother of three, watched the Oct. 13 ambush of the police patrol in
Epinay-sur-Seine from her second-floor window. She, other witnesses and police
union officials said up to 50 masked youths surged out from behind trees.
One of the
three officers needed 30 stitches to his face after being struck by a rock.
The attack was
one of at least four gang beatings of police in Parisian suburbs since Sept.
19. Early Friday, a dozen hooded people hurled stones, iron bars and bottles filled
with gasoline at two police vehicles in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a flashpoint of last
year's riots, said Guillaume Godet, a city hall spokesman. One officer required
three stitches to his head.
Minority youths
have long complained that police are more heavy-handed in their dealings with
them than with whites, demanding their papers and frisking them for no apparent
reason.
Such perceived
ill-treatment fuels feelings of injustice, as do the difficulties that many
youths from immigrant families have finding work.
Distrust and
tension thrive. Rumors have flown around some housing projects that police are
hoping to use the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends this week, to round
up known troublemakers, on the basis that fasting all day will have made the
youths weaker and easier to catch.
Police say that
suggestion is ludicrous. However, they are on guard ahead of the first
anniversary this week of last year's riots. That violence began after two
youths who thought police were chasing them hid in a power substation and were
electrocuted to death.
Police unions
suspect that the recent attacks may be an attempt to spark new riots.
"We are
getting the impression these youths want a 'remake' of what happened last
year," said Fred Lagache, national secretary of the Alliance police union.
"The youths are trying to cause a police error to justify chaos."
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