A total of 897 vehicles were torched overnight from Friday to Saturday in whole France, including 656 in the Paris region, Paris prosecutor general Yves Bot on Saturday told Europe One Radio.

"We can see organized actions, a strategy," he said, calling the incidents "organized violence."

"There are organized gangs. It is incontestable that it is done in a way that has shown coordination between them. We can further more read on some blog sites that asking other French cities to join the movement in the Paris region," he said.

Meanwhile, police said a total of 253 people had been detained for questioning until Saturday, some of them minors caught with fire-bombs.

The violence was sparked last week by the accidental electrocution of two youths in the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, northeast Paris, after they hid from police in an electrical relay station. It has spread out of Paris suburbs to some other cities.

Incidents on a smaller scale were reported in the southern cities of Toulouse and Nice, and in Lille and Rennes to the north.

The French government has vowed to restore order and justice for the society.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose ambition for 2007 presidency bid is not a secret, has pledged to clean up the crime-ridden streets "with a power-hose", and controversially referred to the trouble-makers as "rabble".

French left-wing newspaper Liberation said the rioters were inspired by a combination of anger, urban deprivation, unemployment and heavy-handed policing.

Source: Xinhua