About 100 French youths clashed with police overnight, shooting at police, torching cars, a leisure centre and a nursery school in the northern city of Amiens, a government official said.
Dozens of young men rioted in a troubled district in northern France, pulling drivers from their cars and stealing the vehicles, and burning a school and a youth centre. The police department in Amiens says at least 16 officers were hurt by the time the riot ended Tuesday, some by buckshot and projectiles.
“The confrontations were very, very violent,” Amiens Mayor Gilles Dumailly told .
Police in Amiens said the riot began around 9 p.m. Monday, ending around 4 a.m. after federal reinforcements arrived. It said about a hundred young men were involved. It wasn’t clear what caused the unrest.
Earlier this month, the district in Amiens was among 15 areas declared the most troubled in France, and the government pledged more security and more money.
French President Francois Hollande said his Socialist government would do all that was needed to ensure law and order prevailed after rioting overnight in the northern city of Amiens.
“Interior Minister Manuel Valls will go to Amiens immediately … to say there once again that the state will mobilise all its resources to combat this violence.
“Our priority is security which means that the next budget will include additional resources for the gendarmerie and the police,” Hollande said.
About 100 French youths clashed with police overnight, shooting at police, torching cars, a leisure centre and a nursery school in the northern city of Amiens, a government official said.
Police reinforcements were being dispatched and Interior Minister Manuel Valls was due to visit the city, where two nights of violence were apparently sparked by tension over spot police checks on residents.
“Sixteen police were injured, some by buckshot fire,” Thomas Lavielle, an official at the prefect’s office in the region, told.
The Amiens suburb which erupted in violence has already been identified as needing extra policing by Valls’ Socialist government.
Tensions remain high in France’s rundown suburbs, where poor job prospects, racial discrimination, a widespread sense of alienation from mainstream society and perceived hostile policing have periodically touched off violence.
Weeks of rioting in 2005, the worst urban unrest in France in 40 years, led to the imposition of a state of emergency by the then centre-right government.
The violence provoked months of agonised debate over the state of the grim housing estates that ring many French cities.
The death of two youths hit by a police car sparked violence in 2007. More unrest followed in 2010, when police shot and killed a youth who had robbed a casino.
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