(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-27 14:55

A firefighter extinguishes a burning police car during clashes one day after two youths died in a motorbike accident with a police car in Villiers le Bel in the northern suburb of Paris, November 26, 2007. [Agencies]

Calls for calm

President Nicolas Sarkozy was interior minister during the 2005 riots, when he took a tough line with the rioters which critics said helped stoke the violence.

On Monday, the head of state called for calm.

"I call on everyone to calm down and let the justice system decide who was responsible," Sarkozy told reporters during an official visit to Beijing.

Police have launched an investigation into Sunday's accident, which involved a police car and a moped driven by youths aged 15 and 16. Police say the moped was stolen and the teenagers ignored traffic regulations.

The investigation will focus on whether the two officers helped the dying youths. Relatives and locals complained the police fled the scene after the incident.

Local public prosecutor Marie-Therese de Givry told LCI television the crash investigator's preliminary findings showed the youngsters had turned into the path of the police vehicle.

"The mini-moto was in third gear, which means it was going at top speed," she said. "That's what the expert report says, which confirms the statement by the driver of the police vehicle as well as that of two witnesses."

The officers had immediately called the emergency services. Tapes of the calls and subsequent radio traffic would be studied to see if police followed the correct procedures, she said.

Local inhabitants of the Villiers-le-Bel estate contested that version of events.

"That they say it was an accident, when they ran away, - ran away, I say - that's unacceptable for those who represent the law," Slimane Erraji, uncle of one of the dead, told LCI.

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