Photo: Philippe De Poulpiquet/European Pressphoto Agency
In the News ~ From nytimes.com -
VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France, Nov. 27 — Nearly 86 French police officers were injured during clashes with youths in a working- and lower-class suburb north of Paris last night, and six are in serious condition, police officials said, after some of the youths used hunting shotguns as well as more conventional guns, fire bombs and rocks.
Of the 77 officers who were injured, six were in serious condition, two of them as a result of gunfire, said Francis Debuire, a representative of the National Union of Police Officers in the district where the fighting took place.
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 the French news media merely as 15-year-old Moushin and 16-year-old Larami, who were riding a motorbike in Villiers-le-Bel.
Some of the photos include:
1> Rioters vandalized an abandoned police car late Monday. Police union officials expressed concern that the violence was more severe than the fighting that had occurred in the Paris suburbs over three weeks of rioting in 2005.
2> As in the 2005 riots, the youths were attacking the police mostly with fire bombs, rocks and other projectiles, but they also had guns and appeared to use them more this time.
3> 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.
4> Hooded youths carrying sticks walked in front of a burning car outside a housing project on Monday night. At least 15 cars were burned.
6> Residents in front of the Louis Jouvet local library on Tuesday. At least three buildings suffered some fire damage, including the library and a post office.
7> A damaged classroom in a nursery school. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has appealed for calm, will hold an emergency meeting with security officials to discuss the violence when he returns from a visit to China on Wednesday.
News article link > 86 Police Officers Hurt in Paris Riots
