Paris-Escalating Tension

Hit-and-run arson attacks escalated in poor Paris suburbs as the government met to work out a response to nine nights of urban violence that has spawned copycat unrest in major towns.
The violence has been seen as the expression of pent-up anger by youths, many Muslims of North African and black African origin, at police treatment, racism, unemployment and their marginal place in French society.
After nine nights of wailing sirens, acrid smoke, stone-throwing and destruction, residents from all ethnic backgrounds are tiring of the unrest.
Nearly 900 cars were torched, while at least 170 people belonging to socially segregated ethnic minorities were arrested. According to the police, a total of 897 cars were destroyed during the violent incidents, 656 of which were located in the outskirts of the French capital, as opposed to 519 that had been destroyed in the same areas in previous nights. It is the worst destruction, as far as damages are concerned, recorded since the beginning of the riots.
In fact, the police used helicopters this time to monitor the situation, while some 700 firefighters and 1,400 police officers were deployed in Paris to deal with the rioting youths. While fewer clashes with youths were reported, judicial officials said the unrest was being organised via the Internet and mobile phones.
Without question what is taking place bears all the hallmarks of being coordinated," Yves Bot, the Paris public prosecutor, told Europe 1 radio.
Police appealed for witnesses in the petrol bomb attack on a bus that severely burnt a handicapped woman, and 200 people in Epinay-sur-Seine held a minute's silence for a photographer beaten to death in front of his family in a street robbery.
In Meaux, a town east of Paris whose mayor is government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope, youths threw petrol bombs at paramedics, whose patient was taken to hospital under police escort.
One police union spoke of "civil war spreading into all French ghettos", and said the government should decree a nightly curfew and send in troops to dissuade trouble-makers.
It should be noted that the riots started last week, after the death of two migrants, who were being chased the police.