November 27, 2007
Youths Clash With the Police in France By ARIANE BERNARD
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France, Nov. 26 — Dozens of youths clashed with the police for the second night in a row in a working- and lower-class suburb north of Paris on Monday, throwing stones, glass and firebombs against large contingents of heavily armed riot police officers and moving nimbly from target to target on several fronts, burning cars and a garbage truck.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, in China on an official visit, appealed for calm.
The clashes began when two teenagers traveling on a motorbike died in a collision with a police car on Sunday afternoon in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, about 12 miles north of Paris, in the Val d’Oise department. The two teenagers were identified in the French news media merely as 15-year-old Moushin and 16-year-old Larami, who were riding a motorbike in Villiers-le-Bel.
On Monday night, more than 100 youths had pushed riot police officers into the middle of a four-way intersection, raining projectiles on them from at least two directions. Police officers responded with tear gas and paint guns to mark the attackers for future arrest. Broken glass and used tear-gas canisters littered the roads.
At least one police officer was wounded. Within sight of the intersection, a garbage truck was on fire, apparently unattended as youths lined up behind it.
At least 15 cars were burned, with the police guarding the local fire department and protecting firefighters as they put out fires. At least three buildings suffered some fire damage, including a library and a post office, a spokesman for the police in Val d’Oise said.
Standing on the sideline of the battles, one youth was holding a poster of one of the two dead youths: “Deceased 25/11/07. Dead for nothing.”
The clashes on Monday night took place not far from where Moushin and Larami died, and they followed other confrontations between youths and the police on Sunday night.
Within an hour of the teenagers’ deaths, bands of youths began to throw stones at a police car. Through the evening, they burned down the police station in Villiers-le-Bel, and set fire to four privately owned buildings and 28 cars, the police said. Nine arrests were made, mainly in Villiers-le-Bel.
The violence spread to nearby Sarcelles, and some damage was reported in other towns.
The police expected more unrest on Monday night.
“We’ve talked to our colleagues from the domestic intelligence services, who themselves talked to their contacts, in particular in schools, and what they are hearing are the little brothers saying, ‘My big brother told me to stay home tonight because they are going to destroy everything,’” Patrick Trotignon, who is in charge of the Paris area for the Synergie Officiers police union, said Monday.
The two deaths in Villiers-le-Bel recall the deaths of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, teenagers who were electrocuted in a power station in another suburb, Clichy-sous-Bois, in October 2005. Their deaths led to the three-week civil unrest that eventually spread to many urban areas in France. Mr. Sarkozy, who was interior minister at the time, made a name for himself by calling for tough measures against the youths involved.