Violence flared again Wednesday in riot-hit parts of France but the threat of emergency curfews appeared to have taken the edge off the urban unrest that has gripped the country for almost two weeks.
The French government’s emergency measure was the toughest response to date to rioting in high-immigration suburbs which has left more than 6,000 cars burned, dozens of policemen injured and one civilian dead.
The ritual of car-burnings that has plagued poor city suburbs picked up again after nightfall, but police said there were far fewer incidents pitting rioters against the security forces and no reports of shots fired.
The government Tuesday declared a state of emergency in the worst-hit parts of the country under a decree, applicable from Wednesday, which will allow regional authorities to declare curfews to combat the violence.
The first to act under the new powers, the town of Amiens north of Paris, declared an overnight curfew for unaccompanied under 16-year-olds and a ban on petrol sales to minors, even before the decree comes into force.
Mayors have already declared separate, local curfews, in Orleans and Savigny-sur-Orge, both south of Paris, and in Raincy northeast of the capital.
Across the country, 558 vehicles had been torched at 4:00 am (0300 GMT), compared with 814 at the same time on Tuesday, and 204 people arrested, against 143 the previous night, according to national police figures.
Despite the car-burnings, police said the overall situation was calmer than on recent nights, when dozens of police officers were injured, two by gunshot.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who was visiting police in southwestern Toulouse, a flashpoint of unrest in recent days, said there had been a ‘fairly significant fall’ in the violence.
The situation was relatively calm in the northeast Paris suburbs where the violence began, police said, with isolated cases of arson and a dozen arrests.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Belgium, a dozen cars were set alight, although police downplayed concerns about serious violence spreading over the border.
France invoked a 1955 law, enacted at the start of troubles that triggered the war of independence in French-controlled Algeria, which permits the declaration of curfews, house searches and bans on public meetings.
Seventy-three percent of French people support the government’s curfew decision, according to a poll to appear in Le Parisien/Aujourd’hui.
But some have charged that the measure recalls one of the worst moments in the country’s modern history and has painful associations for Algerians, the original law’s main targets.
The French government’s emergency measure was the toughest response to date to rioting in high-immigration suburbs which has left more than 6,000 cars burned, dozens of policemen injured and one civilian dead.
The ritual of car-burnings that has plagued poor city suburbs picked up again after nightfall, but police said there were far fewer incidents pitting rioters against the security forces and no reports of shots fired.
The government Tuesday declared a state of emergency in the worst-hit parts of the country under a decree, applicable from Wednesday, which will allow regional authorities to declare curfews to combat the violence.
The first to act under the new powers, the town of Amiens north of Paris, declared an overnight curfew for unaccompanied under 16-year-olds and a ban on petrol sales to minors, even before the decree comes into force.
Mayors have already declared separate, local curfews, in Orleans and Savigny-sur-Orge, both south of Paris, and in Raincy northeast of the capital.
Across the country, 558 vehicles had been torched at 4:00 am (0300 GMT), compared with 814 at the same time on Tuesday, and 204 people arrested, against 143 the previous night, according to national police figures.
Despite the car-burnings, police said the overall situation was calmer than on recent nights, when dozens of police officers were injured, two by gunshot.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who was visiting police in southwestern Toulouse, a flashpoint of unrest in recent days, said there had been a ‘fairly significant fall’ in the violence.
The situation was relatively calm in the northeast Paris suburbs where the violence began, police said, with isolated cases of arson and a dozen arrests.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Belgium, a dozen cars were set alight, although police downplayed concerns about serious violence spreading over the border.
France invoked a 1955 law, enacted at the start of troubles that triggered the war of independence in French-controlled Algeria, which permits the declaration of curfews, house searches and bans on public meetings.
Seventy-three percent of French people support the government’s curfew decision, according to a poll to appear in Le Parisien/Aujourd’hui.
But some have charged that the measure recalls one of the worst moments in the country’s modern history and has painful associations for Algerians, the original law’s main targets.
