HUNDREDS OF VEHICLES TORCHED IN RENEWED FRENCH RIOTS

Nov 4, 6:49 AM (ET)

By Kerstin Gehmlich

AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France (Reuters) - Rioters set fire to hundreds of vehicles in an eighth night of unrest in the impoverished suburbs of northeastern Paris as exasperated local officials criticized the response of national leaders.

Rioting erupted again late on Thursday despite hopes that festivities ending the fasting month of Ramadan would calm rioters, many of them Muslims of North African origin protesting against race bias they say keeps them in a second-class status.

Police reported fewer clashes than previous nights when police and fire crews were fired upon by some rioters.

But the rioting continued to spread, with firebombings in western Paris suburbs and similar areas near Rouen in northern France, Dijon in the east and Marseille in the south.

Residents in the bleak housing projects were fed up after eight nights of violence. "I've had enough of this," said a woman of African origin in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northeastern Paris suburb where a warehouse was burned down overnight.

Officials in Seine Saint Denis, the worst-hit department located between central Paris and Charles de Gaulle airport, said 187 vehicles had been destroyed there overnight.

Police detained 27 people and reported two injuries -- one a policeman and another a handicapped person badly burned during an arson attack on a city bus.

French media said up to 600 vehicles were destroyed in the whole greater Paris region, including 23 buses at a terminal in Trappes in the southwest near Versailles. An amateur video aired on television showed them all in a row and all in flames.

Security officials said the presence of hundreds of riot police had acted as a deterrent, but rioters nevertheless set fire to two textile warehouses, a bus depot and a school.

"Why a school, why a car? What can you say about such blind violence," one local mayor, Michel Beaumale, said.

On Thursday evening, local officials complained loudly about dithering and politicking among national officials after Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin briefed them about an "action plan for the suburbs" he aims to present later this month.

"Many of us told him this isn't the time for an umpteenth plan," said Jean-Christophe Lagarde, mayor of Drancy in the riot-hit region. "All we need is one death and I think it will get out of control."

Manuel Valls, mayor of Evry south of the capital, said: "We're afraid that what's happening in Seine Saint Denis will spread. We have to give these people a message of hope."

LAW AND ORDER "ABSOLUTE PRIORITY

Rioting among young men of North African and black African origin -- mostly locally born citizens who feel cheated by France's official promises of liberty, equality and fraternity -- began last week after two teenagers of African origin died while fleeing the police.

Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose bitter political rivalry has overshadowed the government's reaction, teamed up in the French Senate on Thursday to announce that restoring order was their "absolute priority."

Villepin blamed the riots on gangs he said terrorized residents and sought to keep police out of their districts, and vowed law and order would be restored.

In several interviews on Friday morning, conservative politicians said drug traffickers and Islamist militants were fanning the unrest, although they gave no details.

Sarkozy, accused by opponents of inflaming passions with his outspoken attacks on the "scum" behind the violence, said 143 people had been detained in the past week for rioting.

His two-pronged approach -- a crackdown on rioters combined with proposals to promote minorities and help fund mosques -- has provoked rearguard attacks from rivals in the conservative government, who accuse him of stoking extremism.

Villepin has struggled to end cabinet squabbling over how to handle disturbances that forced him to cancel a trip to Canada and Sarkozy to call off a visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan.