PARIS, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- While thousands of police locked down the center of Paris Saturday, new riots broke out in Lyon, France's second city, where police fired volleys of tear gas at bands of youths attacking shops and cars and hurling stones as officers charged.
Riot police stationed in Place Bellecour, in the heart of the city, moved swiftly to make arrests as tourists in Lyon for next week's launch of the New Beaujolais vintage fled from the violence, which broke out in late afternoon, just before the curfew.
This was the second night of trouble in Lyon, as the riots erupted again in the provinces as the Ministry of the Interior concentrated its forces in Paris. Friday night saw riots in Toulouse, home of the Airbus, and in Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast, where police vehicles were burned in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice.
Although Ministry spokesmen has claimed Thursday that the riots were being brought under control, with only 400 cars burned around the country and 168 arrests, more than 500 vehicles were torched Friday night, with over 200 arrests, and exhausted police squads were kept on duty over the weekend.
So far, the 15 days of riots have seen over 6,000 cars burned and over 3,000 arrests.
In Paris, the curfew was extended to a ban on all meetings and public gatherings from Saturday morning until midday Sunday. Anyone found on the streets after a curfew is subject to two months in prison, and police have wide powers to stop and search and to raid houses, to close theaters and cinemas and other public places.
The government Wednesday invoked a law dating from 1955, during the terrorist attacks of the Algerian war, which allows local police to ban "all meetings likely to start or fuel disorder." The weekend lockdown in Paris followed police claims that their monitoring of e-mails and mobile phone text messages had tracked threats of "violent acts" planned for Paris Saturday night.
More than 2000 extra police were brought in from the provinces to held guard central Paris, where the government is determined to stop the kinds of well-publicized attacks that could damage the country's vital tourist trade. There are already reports of cancellations by tour groups for next year, and Paris retailers have been demanding protection for their stores in the important pre-Christmas shopping season.
In Lyon and the Burgundy region, local chambers of commerce had asked for extra police to be on hand to maintain order for the release of this year's vintage of Beaujolais wine, an important marketing period.
The controversial Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy inspected the police lines in Paris, and was seen thanking them for their extra service on TV news. He then characterized the evening riot in Lyon as "a demonstration by anarchists."
Sarkozy has become a symbolic figure for the rioters, who have told journalists that they will continue until the Interior Minister resigns or is sacked after he characterized them as 'racaille' (scum), and announced that he would deport arrested rioters, even if they were in France legally. French opinion polls show 76 percent approval of Sarkozy's tough measures.
Sarkozy has already called back to duty 2,000 police reservists, but the police are already badly overstretched by the spread of the riots, which have now hit over 350 French tons and cities.
Police unions have complained that their men have been sleeping in their riot vans for days at a time, living on sandwiches and taking the occasional shower in police gyms.
"This is the dangerous time, when the police get tired and tense after endless nights on duty and on alert, and when even the best-trained guys can lose control," Raymond Bournicheau, 61, a reserve colonel of gendarmes now alerted back to service, told United Press International.
Six policemen in the Seine-St. Denis district have been suspended pending investigation after French TV news showed film of one black suspect being kicked and beaten.
