French Seek To Extend Riot Curfews

The government approved a bill Monday to extend France's state of emergency for three months, giving itself more policing tools to stop the country's worst civil unrest since the 1960s. It now goes to parliament.

Though violence has abated since breaking out 18 days ago, scattered arson attacks continued early Monday, with youths setting schools and cars ablaze. President Jacques Chirac was to make his first presidential address to the nation on the crisis later in the day.

The bill would see the state of emergency extended to mid-February, reports CBS News correspondent Elaine Cobbe (audio), giving areas hit by the rioting the power to impose curfews whenever they want, as well as conduct house searches and take other steps to prevent unrest.

Chirac said the state of emergency was "necessary to give security forces all the means they need to restore calm definitively."

"It is a measure of protection and precaution," he said, stressing that the plan was temporary and that regional officials would use it "only where it is strictly necessary."

About 40 French towns, including France's third-largest city, Lyon, have used the measure to impose curfews for minors.

There were still scattered attacks around France - young people set schools ablaze and torched cars, but overall the number of incidents was down sharply from the night before, reports Cobbe.

Overnight, the number of car-torchings — a barometer of the unrest — dropped sharply, with youths setting fire to 284 vehicles, compared to 374 the previous night, police said Monday. There were no clashes between police and rioters.

"The lull is confirmed," national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. A week ago, 1,400 cars were incinerated in a single night.

The riots — set off by the accidental electrocution deaths of two teens who thought police were chasing them — began in Paris' poor suburbs, where many immigrants from North and West Africa live with their French-born children in high-rise housing projects.

France's worst unrest since the 1968 student-worker protests is forcing the country to confront decades of simmering anger over racial discrimination, crowded housing and unemployment.

In scattered attacks overnight Sunday-Monday, vandals in the southern city of Toulouse rammed a car into a primary school before setting the building on fire.

In northern France, arsonists set fire to a sports center in the suburb of Faches-Thumesnil and a school in the town of Halluin, the regional government said.

A gas canister exploded inside a burning garbage can in the Alpine city of Grenoble, injuring two police officers, the national police said, adding that three other officers were injured elsewhere.

From Sunday to Monday, 115 people were taken into custody, police said. Since the beginning of the unrest, 2,767 people have been arrested.

The French Federation of Insurance Companies, known by its French initials FFSA, gave a preliminary estimate for the total damage — up to $233.94 million, including $23.39 million for torched cars.

Violence has decreased steadily since the state of emergency went into effect Wednesday. The measure, unless extended, is set to end Nov. 20. The bill to renew it goes to the National Assembly on Tuesday.

Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said the bill would leave open the possibility of ending the emergency measures before three months are up, if order is restored.

Chirac has faced criticism for staying largely quiet on the violence. In 18 days, he has spoken publicly only twice on the issue — once in a brief address on security, and again during a news conference with the Spanish prime minister. His comments Monday to the Cabinet were reported to journalists by Cope.

Within the next few days, France is expected to start deporting foreigners implicated in the violence, a plan by law-and-order Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy that has raised concerns among human rights groups, and questions among other ministers.

Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said he agreed that illegal immigrants could be sent home, but not foreigners with permission to live in France.

"A French person who carried out a crime or a misdemeanor in France cannot be treated in one way while a foreigner with papers in order is treated in another," he told Europe-1 radio. "It's not possible."