France to recruit 500 more police in 2013

PARIS - France will create 500 more posts of police and gendarmes in 2013 after violent riots in the northern city of Amiens, Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced on Thursday.

"Security, like justice, is a priority in 2013 budget," Valls was quoted by local media as saying.

The minister added that the newly recruited will work in the zones which are identified as needing extra policing by the government.

About 100 youths shot at police, torched up to 20 cars, a leisure center and a nursery school overnight on Tuesday after tension had risen over spot police checks on residents. Sixteen policemen were wounded in clashes with the rioters.

French President Francois Hollande pledged to do all that was needed to ensure law and order after the recent riots and said he would devote "additional resources for the gendarmerie and the police" in the next budget to improve security.

Violent rioting of youths were common in poor French cities, where they suffer from poor job prospects, racial discrimination and alienation from the society.

France was plunged into its worst urban unrest in 2005 when a riot was triggered by the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who thought police were chasing them, forcing the then center-right government to impose a state of emergency.