Scope Of French Riots Narrows

Violence In 115 Towns, Compared To Nearly 300 Two Nights Earlier

(CBS/AP)  Rioters defied emergency laws that took effect Wednesday, as they looted and burned two superstores, set fire to a newspaper office and paralyzed France's second-largest city's subway system with a firebomb.

The number of car burnings - a barometer for the unrest - dropped sharply, suggesting the movement lost steam overnight. From Tuesday to Wednesday, youths torched 617 vehicles, down from 1,173 the previous night, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. Incidents were reported in 116 towns, compared to 226 the night before.

President Jacques Chirac announced extraordinary security measures, which began Wednesday and are valid for a 12-day state of emergency, clearing the way for curfews after nearly two weeks of rioting in neglected and impoverished neighborhoods with largely Muslim communities.

The violence started Oct. 27 as a localized riot in a northeast Paris suburb angry over the accidental deaths of two teenagers, of Mauritanian and Tunisian descent, electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation.

It has grown into a nationwide insurrection by disillusioned suburban youths, many of them French-born children of immigrants from France's former territories like Algeria. France's suburbs have long been neglected, and their youth complain of a lack of jobs and widespread discrimination.

Fifteen hundred police reservists have been called up to help patrol the streets, reports CBS News correspondent Elaine Cobbe, but the rioters are mostly in small, mobile groups and they know their neighborhoods better than the police.

The French capital and its suburbs, as well as more than 30 other cities, are covered by a new state-of-emergency decree that gives police sweeping powers to quell unrest, the government said Wednesday.

The new decree defined which parts of France would be covered by the state of emergency declared Tuesday by the government. Aside from Paris, other major cities concerned included Marseille and Lyon.

Officials were forced to shut down the southern city of Lyon's subway system after a firebomb exploded in a station late Tuesday, a regional government spokesman said, adding no one was hurt.

Also Tuesday, youths looted and set fire to a furniture and electronics store and an adjacent carpet store in Arras and torched a newspaper office in Grasse.

Nine buses were set ablaze at a bus depot in Dole, in the eastern Jura region, Reydy said. A bus exploded in Bassens, near the southwest city of Bordeaux after a firebomb was thrown into it, he said, adding that the driver escaped.

In Nice, a man is in serious condition after being hit by a barbell that fell from a high-rise building in a neighborhood where there had been recent riots, a local official said. Authorities are investigating whether it was an accident or an attack.

Youths threw gasoline bombs at police, who retaliated with tear gas in the southern city of Toulouse, where Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was visiting, LCI television said.