France to Vote on Emergency Laws

Europe - France
16 Nov 2005 - BBC News

Printer Friendly Email Article

The French Senate is set to pass emergency laws a day after the lower house of parliament voted for a three-month extension. The laws allow local authorities to impose curfews, conduct house-to-house searches and ban public gatherings. Violence continued across France overnight but fewer cars were set on fire than during previous nights.

Nationwide, 163 cars were burnt - almost down to the levels seen before the riots began last month. At the height of the violence, more than 1,400 vehicles were destroyed in a single night.

A church was badly damaged by fire in the south-eastern town of Romans. But it is not yet clear if the blaze was linked to the wider unrest.

Three mosques have also been hit by firebombs during the 20 nights of violence.

French police say 8,973 cars have been burnt in the past 20 nights of violence, while 2,888 people have been arrested.

National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said on Tuesday the decline showed France was "getting back to normal".

But Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told parliament "we cannot accept that more than 200 cars burn each night". The violence has spread from Paris across French towns and cities, mostly in areas with a high concentration of ethnic minorities.

Residents of housing estates, where unemployment can reach 40%, complain of racism and heavy-handed policing.

The riots began when two boys of North and West African origin were electrocuted in a Paris suburb after running from police, believing they were being chased.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told the BBC that France has been going through a "very deep crisis due to the crisis of immigration and the failure to integrate". He also pointed to the problem of racism.

Meanwhile, senior officials from President Jacques Chirac's centre-right party have suggested that polygamy is one factor in the riots, arguing children of polygamous families have less of a father figure and are more likely to live in overcrowded conditions.

"Polygamy... prevents people being educated as they should be in an organised society. Tens of people cannot live in a single flat," Bernard Accoyer, leader of the Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) in the National Assembly lower house of parliament, told French radio.
Polygamy is illegal in France but until 1993, it was possible for immigrants to bring more than one wife from their home country to join them.

The Senate is dominated by the UMP and is expected to pass the three-month extension to the emergency laws. The lower house passed them by a 346-148 majority. The laws date from the Algerian war of independence in the 1950s.

The Socialist opposition attacked plans to extend the state of emergency, pointing out that few local governors had chosen to impose it.

Mr Chirac told cabinet ministers the extraordinary powers are "strictly temporary and will only be applied where they are strictly necessary".

Copyright BBC 2005