three months, after Christian leaders appealed to end arson attacks against churches and other buildings as violence has spread throughout the country during 18 days of riots.
One church in the town of Sete in the south of France and another in the town of Lens in the north, were among the dozens of buildings attacked in recent days.
In addition 8,400 vehicles were reportedly destroyed by rioting youth in several French cities, including Paris. At least nearly 2,700 people have been arrested in France’s worst violence in decades, in which at least one person died, news reports said.
President Jacques Chirac said the police actions and the planned extension of curfews was "a measure of protection and precaution." Chirac stressed that the measure was "temporary" and that regional officials would use it "only where it is strictly necessary."
FRENCH TOWNS
About 40 French towns, including France’s third-largest city, Lyon, have reportedly used the measure to put curfews for minors into effect. It came as church leaders suggested the riots were an expression of protests against poverty caused by unemployment and discrimination of immigrants.
The 18 nights of arson attacks and riots began after the accidental electrocution deaths of two teens who thought police were chasing in Paris’ poor suburbs, where many immigrants from North and West Africa live with their French-born children in high-rise housing projects.
In a statement, the Mission Populaire, a Protestant mission group that works in deprived areas, condemned what it described as the scourge of institutional violence such as unemployment and an increase of anti-social behavior, Ecumenical News International (ENI) news service reported. "We are in an impasse," the group said. "The wrong responses are being prepared, one of them being the demagogy of a clamp-down, and another fundamentalism to which sheep without shepherds are vulnerable."
ICEBERG TIP
"We’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg," reportedly said Rev. Bertrand Bosc who works for the Protestant group in La Duchere, a troubled suburb of Lyon. Roman Catholic bishops also expressed concern about the situation in their dioceses in Seine-Saint-Denis and Hauts-de-Seine near Paris, where cars and buses have been set on fire.
The president of the bishops’ conference, Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard, criticized "repression and incitement to collective fear" which he said "were not adequate as an answer to the dramatic tensions of our society", ENI reported, in an apparent reference to the government’s get-tough rhetoric in recent days.
"It is vital that the new generations often without hope are offered a way forward of freedom, dignity and respect for others," he was quoted as saying. Moderate Muslim leaders agree, but have also urged their supporters to respect the laws of France amid fears that the violence could further escalate in religious bloodshed. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reports from France).
