Paris Still On Alert As Riots Ebb

Police tightened security in Paris and placed restrictions on some public gatherings, fearing a resurgence in violence after intercepting Internet and mobile phone text messages.

France's worst unrest in decades continued to abate overnight into Saturday, but arson attacks and clashes between rioters and police persisted for a 16th night in parts of the country.

In the south, an attacker threw two firebombs into a mosque during Friday prayers, causing minor damage. It was not immediately clear if the attack was linked to the wider unrest.

As France marked Armistice Day commemorating the end of World War I, calls for peace in the restive poor neighborhoods of France rang out, from demonstrators in Paris to religious leaders at a Lyon-area mosque in the southeast.

With a state of emergency in force, several hundred people gathered at the glassy Wall of Peace near the Eiffel Tower to call for an end to the unrest that since Oct. 27 has spread from the Paris suburbs across the country.

The demonstration drew elderly Parisians and youths from the suburbs along with curious onlookers, all engaging in heated debate over how to stem the violence and tackle the causes.

Authorities have acknowledged that the roots of the problem are deep-seated. The woes include soaring unemployment, poverty and discrimination in the working class suburbs that ring the large cities of France.

"The violence of the last 15 days expresses the frustration of 30 years of denying recognition to the populations living in these neighborhoods," said Hassan Ben M'Barek, a spokesman for Suburbs Respect, a group of associations that organized Friday's demonstration.

He asked President Jacques Chirac and the government to listen carefully to the youths, whose roots are in former French colonies of Africa, including Muslim North Africa, to better fight the "discrimination they suffer daily."

But even as authorities worked to cap the violence and pledged to address the roots of the problem, warning surfaced that more unrest was in the offing on Saturday.

Authorities said messages had surfaced urging continued violence in the capital over the weekend, and, as a precaution, bolstered security in Paris. Truckloads of riot police were deployed on Friday as Chirac rode in an open jeep down the Champs-Elysees to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark Armistice Day.

More than 700 police were brought into the capital to bolster security, raising the full deployment to 2,220.

Paris police headquarters later banned any gatherings of "a nature that could provoke or encourage disorder" from 10 a.m. (0900GMT) Saturday to 8 a.m. (0700GMT) Sunday.

"Messages distributed in the last few days over the Internet and by text messaging have called for gatherings Nov. 12 in Paris and 'violent actions'," a statement said.

It was clear that while abating, the unrest was far from over. Arson attacks that hopscotched around the country, destroying schools, gymnasiums, public buildings, public transport and cars, have declined in recent days, but stretched into a 16th day with nearly 400 cars torched across the country and 162 people arrested overnight into Saturday.

A police officer suffered second-degree burns after a firebomb was thrown into his vehicle, spraying him with flaming gasoline, in the northern town of Saint-Quentin, national police spokesman Patrick Reydy said.

Vandals shut down a power substation Friday night, plunging parts of the northern city of Amiens into darkness for more than an hour, Reydy said.

Four individuals were arrested in Toulouse early Saturday for possessing more than 70 liters (19 gallons) of fuel, Reydy said.

The mosque attack in the southern town of Carpentras drew immediate condemnation from Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. The attacker was pursued by two witnesses but escaped, the regional government said.

Although it was unclear if the mosque attack was linked to the rioting, far-right politicians have used the unrest to promote anti-immigration policies, arguing that French-born children of immigrants from France's former colonies in North and West Africa have been among the rioters.

One of France's worst racist attacks occurred in Carpentras 15 years ago when neo-Nazis desecrated 34 Jewish graves and impaled a body with an umbrella stick, prompting national outrage.

The unrest has decreased since France imposed a state of emergency Wednesday that empowers regions to impose curfews and conduct house searches. The Landes region in the southwest ordered a curfew for minors Friday night in certain towns, the sixth region to use the powers.