Youths Clash With Paris Police After Teens Die in Car Accident
Dozens of youths clashed with police on Monday for the second night in a row in a working- and lower-class suburb north of Paris, throwing stones, glass and firebombs against large contingents of heavily armed riot police officers and moving nimbly from target to target on several fronts, torching cars and a garbage truck.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, in China on Monday 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 French news reports only as 15-year-old Moushin and 16-year-old Larami.
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 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 were lined up behind it.
At least 15 cars were burned Monday, with the police guarding the local fire department and moving to protect firefighters as they put out fires. At least three buildings received some fire damage, including a library and a post office, a spokesman for the police in Val d’Oise said.
Many of the youths had lined up garbage cans in the middle of the street.
Firecrackers could be heard. When a firebomb hit a garbage can, the youths could be heard cheering. 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 incidents 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 had begun to throw stones at the police car. Through the evening, they burned down the police station in Villiers-le-Bel, four privately owned buildings, 28 cars and two dozen trash cans, the police said. A police officer suffered a punctured lung. 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 in an interview.