PARIS,
November 12, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A mosque
in the French city of Carpentras in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
region came under Molotov cocktails attack on Friday, November 11,
during the weekly Friday prayer as dozens of suburbanites took to the
streets to protest at the continued riots and call for peace.
The
attack is "disgraceful and utterly unacceptable," Interior
Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told the Muslim community in the small town
in a message of regret, Britain's The Independent newspaper
reported Saturday, November 12.
The
daily said the attack looked like an attempt by unknown people seeking
to ignite more violence.
Although
the attack on the mosque took place during Friday prayer, a time when
the mosque is in full capacity, no casualties were reported.
On
October 27, the electrocution of two teenagers, believed to be traced
by the police in the slump Seine-Saint-Denis, sparked the raging
riots, the worst since students' riots in 1968.
Thousands
of cars have been burned and more than 2,500 people arrested.
Muslim
leaders have accused a "third party" of fishing in the
troubled waters.
Chairman
of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) Lhaj Thami Breze
said far-rightists and Zionists were responsible for fueling the riots
to smear the image of Muslims and Arabs.
The
Muslim leader said many of the incidents involving the burning of
public properties remain ambiguous.
Sarkozy
had further said the violence was being orchestrated by unknown
organizers.
“Respect
for suburbs”
 |
|
Firemen
extinguish a burning car torched during disturbances in
Strasbourg's western suburb of Hautepierre. (Reuters)
|
On
Friday afternoon, some 300 residents of troubled suburbs of Paris
demonstrated against violence on the Champ de Mars, close to the
Eiffel Tower, said the British newspaper.
The
multi-racial demonstrators, carrying white handkerchiefs or flags,
urged the gangs, who have left a trail of arson and destruction in
poor suburbs all over France in the past fortnight, to bring their
violence to an end.
However,
the demonstrators, organized by a group called Banlieue Respect
(respect for the suburbs), also urged the government and wealthier
French citizens to heed the warnings of the past two weeks.
The
riots "express the frustrations of 30 years of denial or
recognition to [people] who are French by law but treated in reality
as second-class citizens," read a statement issued by the
marchers.
Chirac's
government has come under increasing pressure to halt the riots,
sparked by frustration among ethnic minorities over racism,
unemployment and harsh treatment by police.
Many
feel trapped in the drab suburbs, built in the 1960s and 1970s to
house waves of immigrant workers.
Their
French-born children and grandchildren are now out on the streets
demanding the equality France promised but, they say, failed to
deliver.
Upsurge
After
a tangible decrease in acts of violence over the past few days, France
saw a new reemergence of damage overnight caused by suburban rioting
around the country, police said on Saturday, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
In
total, 502 vehicles were set alight by rioters and 206 people arrested
around the country, national police said in a final tally.
This
was an increase on the previous night, when 395 vehicles were torched
and 168 people detained.
The
upsurge in violence will prove a worry for authorities following a
gradual dip in the numbers of arrests and destroyed vehicles over the
preceding few nights.
The
government announced Tuesday, November 8, a raft of security as well
as social and economic measures to defuse the crisis.
A
cabinet meeting invoked a 50-year-old law, authorizing curfews, house
searches and a ban on public meetings, "forbid the movement of
people and vehicles in places and times fixed by decree" and ban
"meetings likely to provoke or fuel disorder."
