State of emergency in French cities extended for three months

The French government approved Monday a law bill to extend emergency powers for three months to restore public order. The bill is to be examined Tuesday at the parliament.

French President Jacques Chirac qualified the extension as "a strictly temporary measure which will be applied only where it is strictly necessary," said French government's spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.

"The decision to resort to this somewhat exceptional procedure has encouraged people to think hard about the situation and reminded parents of their responsibilities vis-a-vis their children," said government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.

"It is important for prefects ( French local officials) to have the means to act for a period that is limited but long enough to make sure these serious breaches of public order do not recur," he said.

The state of emergency, introduced under a rarely used 1955 law, was declared last Wednesday in most of the country's riot-hit towns and cities by government decree, which gives powers to prefects to take curfews if they judge the measures are necessary.

Some 30 French towns or cities have imposed curfews fon under 16-year-olds, and two temporary bans on public gatherings have been imposed in Paris and Lyon.

According to French police, 284 cars were burned and some 115 people were detained across the country overnight Sunday.

According to the police intelligence service RG, on an average week in France -- even before the riots broke out -- some 650 car are burned by youth gangs, mostly at weekends.

More than 8,000 cars have been burned and more than 2,760 the number of arrests since the violence sparked on Oct. 27 when two teenagers were accidentally electrocuted in an electrical sub-station in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois as they tried to flee police identity check.

Source: Xinhua