Paris fairly quiet as other riots continue

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PARIS, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Sporadic violence continued around France as cities began imposing curfews allowed by Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's state of emergency.

The Paris suburbs where the riots began almost two weeks ago were relatively quiet, the BBC reported. But Lyon shut down its public transportation system after someone threw a Molotov cocktail inside a train station, a bus was hit with a petrol bomb in Bordeaux and young men threw firebombs at police in Toulouse.

Amiens put a curfew in force at midnight, the first city to act under the state of emergency. The BBC said that some cities had already imposed local curfews.

The riots were set off in Clichy-sous-Bois, northwest of Paris, by the deaths of two teenagers from North African immigrant families in an electrical substation. The trouble has been fueled by high unemployment in the high-rise districts where many immigrants live.

Violence spread night after night, first from Clichy to neighboring suburbs and then around Paris and to other cities.

Hundreds of people have been arrested, and judges have been imposing stiff sentences. At least one person has been killed, a man who was injured when he was attacked as he tried to put out a trash can fire.

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