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AS ANNIVERSARY OF RIOTS NEARS,
SUBURBAN YOUTHS MARCH ON PARIS

PARIS October 25, 2006 (NYT/AP) - Hundreds of youths from suburbs that erupted in rioting last year marched through Paris on Wednesday to present a collection of 20,000 complaints to lawmakers and to urge minorities to make themselves heard by voting, not with violence.

... "The context is still the same; nothing has changed," said Samir Mihi, the co-founder of Aclefeu [Association Collectif Liberté Egalité Fraternité Egalité ensemble unis], a group that collected grievances from minorities across France. "So the situation is propitious for other events like last year."

Aclefeu was created last year, after the Oct. 27 deaths of two young men of African descent who were electrocuted in a power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast of Paris, while apparently hiding from the police. The group, whose name is a play on words for "enough fire," crisscrossed France in two painted minibuses to meet with minorities and have them sign its "Book of Grievances."

On Wednesday, the demonstrators, holding ragged-looking notebooks filled with complaints for politicians, crossed southern Paris and headed toward the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, after a stop at the Senate.

... Despite an influx of government funds and a glut of promises since last year’s violence, disenchantment and anger still thrive in the tall, cinder-block towers that make up the housing projects in the suburbs.

"In 12 months, it’s obvious that you can’t change everything," said Claude Dilain, the mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois. "I’m worried because not only has the French society’s attitude not changed, but I think it has even worsened," he said in an interview. "A large part of French society disdains the suburbs."

FEARS OF REPEAT PARIS RIOTS AS BUSES BURN*

PARIS October 26, 2006 (Times Online) - Around ten hooded men, five of them carrying handguns, put a weapon to the head of the driver and forced him and his passengers off a bus heading to the eastern suburb of Montreuil in the early hours of the morning.

The gang then drove off in the vehicle before setting it alight in the second incident of its kind in Paris within a few hours.

In the other attack in the suburb of Nanterre around ten passengers scrambled to safety after a bus was boarded by a group of six youths who sprayed it with flammable liquid before starting a fire.

French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said the vandals were guilty of "attempted murder".

Drivers on the Montreuil line went on strike to protest against the attack while the Essonne local public transport network, TICE, said it was suspending all night time bus services on 17 routes because of "a series of "minor incidents".

As the first bus was being attacked youths threw stones at passing vehicles at Grigny, in the south of the capital, as well as police cars that came to the scene while another group stoned police and firefighters who came to put out a burning car in the nearby town of Corbeil-Essonnes.

Please note that the press manages to identify the ethnicity of the electrocuted youths, victims of their own folly, but can never make out the ethnicity of thugs and vandals who victimize the French.

* Absolutely no Muslims or maghrébins sighted during the writing of this report.

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