AMIENS, France — Months of tension between police and young people in a
troubled district of northern France exploded on Tuesday, with dozens
of youths facing off against riot officers in a night of violence.
Seventeen officers were injured, a pre-school and public gym were
torched, and at least three passing drivers in Amiens were dragged from
their cars.
The immediate cause of the riots was unclear, but a standoff between
police and people attending a memorial for a young man who died in a
motorcycle accident may have been one trigger. Officials underlined that
police were not involved in the death.
The eruption of violence shows how little relations have
changed between police and youths in France's housing projects since
nationwide riots in 2005 raged unchecked for nearly a month, leaving
entire neighborhoods in flames in the far-flung suburbs.
The sister of the young man who died in the accident said it was
impossible for people in her community to even speak with the police.
"As soon as they see young people, it's to handcuff them or harass
them," said Sabrina Hadji, 22. "The dialogue is completely broken."
Less than two weeks ago, the French government declared Amiens among
15 impoverished zones to receive more money and security, but many
people remain frustrated at what they see as official indifference to
their situations. Unemployment skews higher in northern France and among
the country's youth.
At the height of the confrontation, 150 officers – both local and
federal riot police – faced off against young men who fired buckshot and
fireworks at them, skirmishing through the neighborhood in the city
about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Paris. There were no arrests.
"The confrontations were very, very violent," Amiens Mayor Gilles
Dumailly told the French television network BFM. Dumailly said tensions
had been building for months between police and the impoverished
residents, whom he described as "people who are in some difficulty."
Anger was still running high when Interior Minister Manuel Valls
arrived in the neighborhood Tuesday afternoon. A small group of people
tried to push through Valls' security detail as he walked through the
area, alternately booing him, cursing him and trying to speak to him.
One shouted out, "When are you going to speak to us?" before the
minister ducked into a building to meet with the mayor, the head of the
local prefecture, and Sabrina Hadji and her mother.
Valls, who used to represent an impoverished area outside of Paris in
Parliament, showed anger himself, expressing disbelief that police
officers had been shot at.
"Shooting a police officer? Burning a school? And then questioning
these forces? It's intolerable," he said at a news conference. "Nothing
excuses shooting at police officers and burning public buildings."
While he took a tough line in saying that order had to be restored,
he added that the residents of the neighborhood are the primary victims
and said his door would always be open to them.
Relations between police and youth in housing projects have been
troubled for years, perhaps decades. Riots occasionally erupt, often in
the hot nights of August, when France's rich and middle classes head off
for long vacations but poor and immigrant families in the projects stay
home.
Alain Bauer, a professor of criminology, said circumstances had only
worsened since 2005. He said it was hard to predict what would happen
after the Amiens violence, which he described as "a culmination of
bitterness and tension."
"These are small events that stand apart unless they take on greater
importance," he said. "It will take an in-depth reaction (from the
government), responding to both criminal and social problems."
The riots usually follow a pattern: Police target a kid speeding on a
motorbike or doing something suspicious; the kid speeds or runs away to
escape and dies or gets seriously injured in flight. The neighborhood
rises up in anger and that night or the next, young people head out to
burn cars, police stations or any building representing authority.
Police often respond by coming in force with tear gas, further angering
the local population.
Hadji, whose 20-year-old brother Nadir died in the motorcycle
accident, said the violence was a bubbling up from long-simmering anger.
She accused local police of provoking the riots by acting too
aggressively when they asked for ID from people gathering at a memorial
for her brother.
"The police in Amiens really, really, really hate the people in the
northern part of Amiens," she said. "They consider us to be animals."
Valls vehemently defended the behavior of police officers when he
spoke to reporters, but the local government has asked for an
investigation.
The local government said the riot involved about a hundred young men
and began around 9 p.m. Monday, ending around 4 a.m. after federal
reinforcements arrived. There had been smaller confrontations with
police over the past week, including one involving a weekend traffic
stop that some local residents thought was unnecessarily heavy-handed.
Until Monday night, the violence in Amiens had been on a smaller
scale. By the time the latest confrontation was over, two school
buildings had been burned, along with a dozen cars and trash cans used
as flaming barricades. At least three bystanders were hurt when rioters
yanked them from their cars, the local officials said.
"Public security is not just a priority but an obligation," French
President Francois Hollande said Tuesday, speaking at a memorial for two
gendarmes killed in June. "We owe it to the population, we owe it to
the security forces."
In recent days, there has also been unrest in the southern city of
Toulouse, where rival groups in two housing projects have been battling
for a number of days. The violence marked the first major unrest under
Hollande, who took office in May.
Unemployment stands at 12 percent in the Somme, the area in northern
France of which Amiens is the governmental seat, compared with 10
percent nationwide. Among French ages 15-24, unemployment stands at 23.3
percent, according to the national statistics agency.
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