Villiers-Le-Bel, France: In a sinister echo of the riots that rocked France in 2005, violence again resounded in the streets of Paris.
Since the past two nights, angry youths and the police have been clashing in poor suburbs outside Paris. A police station was targeted by Molotov cocktails. A McDonald’s restaurant was burnt, as were several police barricades and dozens of cars.
Thirty police officers, including the chief, have been injured and eight people arrested.
The rioters have blamed the French police for the deaths of two teenagers in a road accident on Sunday.
They claim that the officers left the accident site without helping the teenagers, whose motorbike crashed into their car.
The police, however, doubt the claim and have maintained that the motorcyclists had been speeding and were not wearing helmets. They have added that the motorbike was unregistered hence not authorised on French roads.
Despite that, the internal police oversight agency has been involved in investigating the matter and a manslaughter inquiry ordered.
The 2005 riots had started similarly, with the deaths two teenaged youths who had gotten electrocuted in a power station where they had been hiding from police.
With inputs from Associated Press
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