PARIS (AP):
PRESIDENT JACQUES Chirac for the first time directly addressed the inequalities and discrimination that have fuelled two weeks of rioting across France, saying yesterday that the country has "undeniable problems" in its poor suburbs.
Violence continued to slow under state-of-emergency measures and heavy policing, with far fewer skirmishes and fewer cars burned. Police, meanwhile, suspended eight officers, two of them suspected of beating a man detained during the riots.
"Things are calming," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday on France-2 television. "But that doesn't mean it won't restart."
As midnight approached, isolated reports of cars being torched emerged, but it appeared clear that violence was on a much lower level than on previous nights.
Chirac had kept largely silent about France's worst unrest since the 1968 student-worker uprising: In 14 days of violence, he had spoken publicly on the crisis only once.
Once order is restored, Chirac said yesterday, France will have to "draw the consequences of this crisis, and do so with a lot of courage and lucidity."
WAVE OF ARSON
The unrest, which started among youths in the north-eastern suburban Paris town of Clichy-sous-Bois angry over the accidental electrocution deaths of two teenagers grew into a nationwide wave of arson and nightly clashes between rioters armed with firebombs and police retaliating with tear gas.
The crisis has led to collective soul-searching about France's failure to integrate its African and Muslim minorities. Anger about high unemployment and discrimination has fanned frustration among the French-born children of immigrants from France's former colonies.
