Violence Flares Again in Paris Suburbs, 05/31/06 Options

[ABLAT Staff]

May 31, 2006, 8:10AM
Violence Flares Again in Paris Suburbs


By PIERRE-YVES ROGER Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

MONTFERMEIL, France — Youths torched a dozen cars and hurled stones at police in a second night of violence in the troubled Paris suburbs, raising memories of rioting that rocked the nation last year.

Six police officers suffered light injuries and 13 people were detained in the violence Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, police said.

It did not appear to reach the scale of the first overnight clashes Monday night, in which bands of young people hurled gasoline bombs at public buildings and took to the streets with baseball bats. Then, police said nine officers were wounded and that they fired rubber pellets to disperse the roughly 100 youths.

The tensions are a stark reminder of the anger that smolders in depressed French suburbs, despite new government efforts to tackle high youth unemployment and racial inequalities following the three weeks of similar _ but far worse _ rioting last fall.

One of the young men briefly detained Tuesday night for throwing stones at police was also involved in the incident that sparked last year's riots. He was injured and two other youths were killed _ all electrocuted _ as they hid from police in a power substation.

Dozens of vans carrying riot officers were stationed Tuesday night in Montfermeil, 10 miles east of Paris, and in the nearby suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, the flashpoint of last year's rioting. A helicopter surveilled the area.

About 15 young people hurled projectiles at police in Clichy-sous-Bois, and a group of 30 threw rocks at a police station in Montfermeil, police said.

A firebomb was thrown inside a police vehicle, setting it ablaze. Officers inside barely had time to get out, and one was hospitalized but his injuries were not serious.

About 12 cars were torched before calm was restored around 1:30 a.m., police said. At the height of last year's riots, more than 1,000 cars were torched in one night. Even in times of relative calm, torching cars is a regular occurrence in the troubled suburbs.

The trigger of this week's unrest was the arrest Monday of a suspect in the beating of a bus driver earlier this month, the Montfermeil mayor's office said.

The head of the opposition Socialist party, Francois Hollande, accused outspoken Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday of doing "nothing to calm" the violence _ and of fueling it through hostile statements toward suburban youth.

"We have the painful sense that nothing has been fixed" since the riots of last year, Hollande said on France-2 television.

Many of those who rioted then were of immigrant origin, laying bare decades of discrimination and France's failure to integrate immigrants and provide opportunities for impoverished youth.

Tension in Montfermeil has remained high since the mayor last month banned teenagers from circulating in groups of more than three, and ordered youths under 16 to be accompanied by an adult in public. A court later overturned the bans after protests from civil liberties groups.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3917047.html

[ABLAT Staff]

Amnesty plan for 500,000 illegal migrants
By Philip Johnston, Home
(Filed: 14/06/2006)



The prospect of an amnesty for more than half a million illegal immigrants was raised by the Home Office for the first time last night.

Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, refused to rule one out when he was questioned by the Commons home affairs select committee.


Liam Byrne: 'I have commissioned analysis'
Pressure has been growing on the Government from unions and religious leaders to consider ''regularising'' the position of an estimated 570,000 economic migrants and failed asylum seekers who are unlikely ever to go home.

Although official policy is that foreign nationals who have no right to be in the country should be removed, that would take at least 20 years even if their countries were prepared to have them.

Previous governments have agreed to special arrangements - they refused to call them amnesties - for people who had been waiting years to have their asylum applications processed. But any suggestion of a mass amnesty has always been rejected.

However, Mr Byrne, who has been in his post for less than a fortnight, said it was "too early to tell" whether he would allow such a move. He has asked officials to prepare a report on "the issues" surrounding an amnesty.

"The position I am in is really needing to understand in more detail than I do the precise segmentation of people whose positions have not been regularised," he told MPs. "I have commissioned some analysis."

In the past, ministers feared that an amnesty would act as a magnet for more illegal migration and a spur to international people traffickers.


David Davis: 'Even speculating is irresponsible'
It would also reward people who had claimed that they were the victims of political persecution when, in fact, they were economic migrants.

There would be objections from other EU countries because, once the illegals were allowed to stay in Britain, they would be free to travel and settle throughout the union.

Although the Home Office said there were ''no plans for an amnesty", Richard Benyon, Tory MP for Newbury and a member of the select committee, said that Mr Byrne's answers indicated "a clear change of emphasis''.

He said: ''It certainly rings alarm bells with me that it is not being ruled out at the very least and is being actively considered at the very most.

"It will not solve the problem; it will make it worse. It is an active incentive for people to come here illegally.'' David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "With our borders so badly protected, even speculating about an amnesty is highly irresponsible. An amnesty could lead to a massive, uncontrolled increase in the numbers coming here."

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch UK said: "This is thoroughly irresponsible. It is not a change of thinking; it is an absence of thinking."

But with ministers arguing that they have tightened the borders and with a new points-based work permit system about to be introduced, the Government may at some stage need to consider the fate of people who cannot or will not return to their home countries.

A senior Home Office official conceded last month that he ''did not have the faintest idea'' how many illegal immigrants there were. A semi-official estimate suggested that the number could be between 310,000 and 570,000, while other estimates put the total at nearer a million.

Last month Jack Dromey, the deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, said it would be "impracticable and immoral" to try to deport so many people, many of whom had put down roots in the country. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales, has also backed an amnesty for illegal immigrant workers with no criminal record.

A study by the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated that around £1 billion could be generated if Britain allowed illegal immigrants to settle, work and pay taxes.

In 2002, a House of Lords report called for an amnesty for the "growing under-class of people" who could not be removed.

Labour came under further fire last night when it was disclosed that thousands of immigrants were wrongly paid up to £4.5 million in tax credits after orders by ministers that checks on claimants should be relaxed.

Officials at the Inland Revenue were told to overlook irregularities in applications to ensure that as many people as possible applied for Gordon Brown's flagship scheme to help low-income families.

An official memo released under the Freedom of Information Act said that, if someone failed to meet the residency criteria, staff should still approve the application "providing one or both claimants had a valid Nino [National Insurance num-ber]".

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said: "This is an utter fiasco, which has wasted yet more taxpayers' money."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...6/14/nimm14.xml