Militants attack mosque in bid to reignite French riots

PARIS, November12 , 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, November11 , 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, November12 .

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 October27 , 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 in1968 .

Thousands of cars have been burned and more than2 , 500people 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”

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 the1960 s and1970 s 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, November8 , a raft of security as well as social and economic measures to defuse the crisis.

A cabinet meeting invoked a50 -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."

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