French PM cancels Canada trip as riots spread

PARIS - French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has cancelled a trip to Canada to tackle spreading unrest in poor Paris suburbs and quell a damaging public row between his ministers over how to respond.

After a sixth night of unrest, Dominique Villepin summoned eight ministers to a crisis meeting on problem neighbourhoods in an effort to stamp out ministerial squabbling and deflect opposition charges of drift.

Street fighting, sparked by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted while apparently fleeing police during a local disturbance, spread to other parts of the poor suburbs ringing the capital to the north and the east, police said.

A heavy police presence kept a tense order in Clichy-sous-Bois as disturbances broke out in previously quiet areas. A total of 34 people were detained by police overnight, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio.

The unrest has stoked bitter rivalry between Villepin and his deputy Sarkozy ahead of 2007 presidential elections.

Villepin told parliament he had cancelled plans to leave for Canada on Wednesday. And, while demanding punishment for lawbreakers, he took a calculated swipe at strong language used by Sarkozy, who had called the protesting youths "scum" .

"Let's avoid stigmatising areas .... let's treat petty crime differently to major crime, let's fight all discrimination with firmness, and avoid confusing a disruptive minority with the vast majority of youngsters who want to integrate into society and succeed," he said.

CABINET SQUABBLING

President Jacques Chirac said the law must be enforced firmly but "in a spirit of dialogue and respect," government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope quoted him as saying. "There cannot be 'no-go' areas in the republic," he added.

The unrest in the northern and eastern suburbs, heavily populated by North African and black African minorities, was fuelled by youths' frustration at their failure to get jobs and recognition in French society.

Those problems face governments across Europe but the French unrest has also highlighted fault lines dividing a conservative government split between supporters of Sarkozy and allies of Chirac and the loyalist Villepin.

Equal Opportunities Minister Azouz Begag openly criticised Sarkozy and complained that the interior minister never consulted him over policy.

"I talk with real words," Sarkozy fired back in an interview in the daily Le Parisien. "When someone shoots at policemen, he's not just a 'youth', he's a lout, full stop."

Commentators said the intense rivalry between the cabinet's two most powerful figures was distracting the government and beginning to dictate policy.

"With Begag, the prime minister thinks he has found a way to compete, at least in terms of tone, with Sarkozy's omnipresence on the subject, and to push him into going over the top and so to make a mistake," the left-leaning daily Liberation said.

The regional Sud-Ouest newspaper said that with presidential elections just 18 months away, Sarkozy seemed to be losing his touch: "What's at stake for him right now is 2007."

The opposition Socialists, humiliated in 2002 general elections largely on law and order issues, denounced Sarkozy's style and said his tough policies were failing.

"I think when you are interior minister and number two in the government, you should master your own language," party leader Francois Hollande told reporters. 

- REUTERS