Paris - At least 21 police officers and firefighters were
injured when gangs of youths rioted in four Paris suburbs after two
teenagers died when their motorcycle collided with a police car,
police sources said Monday.
Dozens of youths attacked police stations, ransacked stores and
set cars ablaze late Sunday in a disturbing echo of the three weeks
of urban unrest that swept through poor suburbs throughout France in
November 2005.
That rioting was also provoked by the deaths of two teenagers from
another Paris suburb. They were electrocuted when they tried to hide
from police in a power station.
The riots erupted Sunday evening after two youths of African
origin, aged 15 and 16, were killed when the off-road motorcycle on
which they were riding was struck by a police car in the suburb of
Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris.
Police said the teens were not wearing helmets, were travelling at
high speed, and that the crash occurred after they failed to yield
the right of way to the police cruiser.
However, French media reported Monday that the cause of the
accident had not been determined and that an investigation into the
circumstances surrounding the fatalities was ongoing.
After the accident, young people set trash cans and cars on fire.
The police station in Villiers-le-Bel was attacked with Molotov
cocktails and set on fire, and a police station in neighbouring
Arnouville was destroyed.
'They burned the police station, all the cars around it as well,'
a resident of Villiers-le-Bel told the daily Le Parisien. 'They broke
all the windows of the nearby stores and the train station. The whole
neighbourhood was vandalized.'
Two police officers were shot with a shotgun in clashes with the
rioters while another officer who attempted to calm the mob was badly
beaten, the administration of the departement, or region, of Val-
d'Oise said.
An estimated 50 to 100 youths were said to have taken part in the
violence, police said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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