FRANCE: French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and CGT union representative react to overnight attacks on buses by masked vandals near Paris

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin reacted on Thursday (October 26) to violence on the eve of the anniversary of riots in France's multi-ethnic suburbs. He promised swift punishment for those behind the twin assaults. "We can't accept the unacceptable. The situation in Nanterre concerning a bus and the latest attacks in some suburbs must lead to an immediate response. There will be arrests and immediate, exemplary punishment. It's our responsibility to do so," he told his monthly news conference. Masked vandals set ablaze two buses near Paris overnight. Passengers managed to flee the buses in the western suburb of Nanterre and the eastern suburb of Bagnolet before the flames engulfed the interiors. The overnight incidents followed a daylight assault on a bus just south of Paris on Sunday. Youths on ethnically mixed estates around the capital have also staged several apparently concerted attacks on security forces in recent weeks. Police say the violence has been building ahead of the Oct. 27 anniversary of last year's riots in which angry youths from mainly immigrant backgrounds burned cars and wrecked shops for three weeks in a protest blamed on poverty and discrimination. Police appealed for witnesses to the attacks and bus drivers refused to enter some of Paris's most troubled suburbs to protest against the violence. A Police union spokesman said that six unidentified individuals boarded the Nanterre bus and sprayed it with inflammable liquid. In the Bagnolet attack, one assailant held a pistol to the head of a bus driver while others forced passengers to get off before they set the bus on fire. CGT union representative at RATP and bus driver Antoine Maesano said that, following the attacks, they've all decided to go on strike for one day until RATP improves their safety. "When my colleagues arrived his morning, they considered that all the working conditions were not good enough to ensure their safety. In a show of solidarity and the right to refuse an order, we've decided today to stop working. So, we wait for RATP to make decisions about our working conditions, so that we can start our work again as soon as possible," he said. Cars are regularly torched in France's poor suburbs but attacks on buses are rare. In the first six months of 2006, some 21,000 cars were burnt out and some 2,882 attacks registered against the police, fire and ambulance services, the RG police intelligence service said. The leftist opposition accused the government on Thursday of not doing enough to resolve tensions in the deprived suburbs that ring most French cities. But Villepin said his government had done more than any other to improve the lot of people living in the suburbs. Security in the suburbs is likely to be a major issue in the 2007 presidential election, with hardline Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy garnering much support for his tough approach to law and order issues.

ITN Source | October 27, 2006

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