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French Premier Visits Poor Suburb

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin made an unannounced visit Tuesday to a Paris suburb hit by rioting and said that a struggle against injustice and discrimination "should mobilize us all, every French man and woman." Villepin traveled to Aulnay-sous-Bois, northeast of Paris, a day after President Jacques Chirac said in a televised address that the worst civil unrest in almost 40 years pointed to a deep national malaise and identity crisis.

The unrest began Oct. 27 with the accidental deaths of two youths apparently fleeing police and quickly engulfed immigrant-dominated suburbs in towns and cities around France. The violence has destroyed about 8,500 vehicles and 100 public buildings. About 2,800 people have been detained and 600 jailed, Villepin said.

Police said Tuesday that 215 vehicles had been destroyed the previous night, an "almost normal" level. The torching of cars by gangs has been common for years in France`s depressed and sometimes lawless immigrant neighborhoods. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, launching the emergency powers debate in Parliament, said that 75 to 80 percent of the people arrested in rioting were already known to police. He asserted that there was a clear link between unrest and zones targeted in a crackdown on crime gangs.