Rioting spreads beyond Paris suburbs (AP) Updated: 2005-11-05 13:45
Marauding youths set fire to cars, warehouses and a
nursery school and pelted rescuers with rocks early Saturday, as the worst
rioting in a decade spread from Paris to other French cities. The U.S. warned
Americans against taking trains to the airport via strife-torn areas.
Firefighters at work in the ruins of a Chinese
textiles warehouse in Le Bourget, northeast of Paris, Friday, Nov. 4,
2005. Small, mobile groups of youths torched hundreds more cars near Paris
on Friday, and the violence and arson attacks that have shaken the
capital's suburbs for a week spread to other French towns.
[AP] |
A savage assault on a bus passenger highlighted the dangers of travel in
Paris' impoverished outlying neighborhoods, where the violence has entered its
second week.
Attackers doused the woman, in her 50s and on crutches, with an inflammable
liquid and set her afire as she tried to get off a bus in the suburb of Sevran
Wednesday, judicial officials said. The bus had been forced to stop because of
burning objects in its path. She was rescued by the driver and hospitalized with
severe burns.
Justice Minister Pascal Clement deplored the incident, saying it caused him
"great emotion."
Rioters burned more than 500 vehicles Friday as the unrest grew beyond the
French capital for the first time. Unrest returned to the streets in the evening
and early Saturday, the ninth night in a row.
Police said troublemakers fired bullets into a
vandalized bus and burned 85 more cars in Paris and Suresnes, just to the west.
In Meaux, east of Paris, officials said youths stoned rescuers aiding someone
who had fallen ill.
|