NOV 3, 2005

"I didn't know you, but it hurts so much to lose someone and I will never be able to forget you," she wrote, posting her heartache to one of the dozens of French Internet blogs newly dedicated to two teenaged boys who have come to be known as "the angels of the ghetto."

The two boys Traore Bouna, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17 were electrocuted in a gruesome accident in Clichy-sous-Bois, one of the grim, densely populated suburban slums ringing Paris. They apparently thought police were chasing them, although the police say they were not involved. A third teenager with them was seriously injured.

The deaths, a week ago today, have sparked a week of rioting that has spread to at least 20 towns, leaving a trail of tear-gas grenades, hundreds of burned cars and fire-blackened buildings in the worst urban violence France has seen for years.

The dead teenagers have been lionized as martyrs to police heavy-handedness, to racism and to decades of official neglect of the country's underclass of African and Arab immigrants.

Despite calls for calm by President Jacques Chirac and religious leaders, and a cordial meeting between Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and the parents of the teenagers, the disturbances continued for an eighth consecutive night.

Youths went on the rampage in ten areas in poor suburbs ringing the French capital to the north and the east, setting alight about 315 cars, two buses and dumpsters, as well as causing damage to at least one school, a shopping centre, a police post, a Renault car dealership and a local gymnasium.

Elsewhere a France 2 TV crew were forced by hooded youths to abandon their car, which was then set ablaze by 40 rioters, reports AFP.

"Emotions must quiet down," Mr. Chirac told government ministers yesterday, a government spokesman reported. Hundreds of police were deployed to control the disturbances, with some units diverted from a soccer match.

The fiery images from the suburbs recalled earlier tragedies that roiled the immigrant communities, particularly the string of fires in dilapidated apartment buildings in Paris in August and September. The fires killed 24 people, all of them immigrants crammed into illegal housing who had been promised decent lodging for years.

"People are joining together to say we've had enough," a 22-year-old named Eric told Associated Press in Clichy-sous-Bois, heavily populated by first-and second-generation North African and Muslim immigrants. Eric was born in France to Moroccan parents.

"We live in ghettos," he added refusing to give his surname. "Everyone lives in fear."

The unrest has highlighted the division between France’s big cities and their poor suburbs. Frustrations have been simmering in housing projects that dominate the area, which is marked by high unemployment, crime and poverty.

France's PM, Mr. de Villepin, canceling his planned departure for Canada, said  "There is no miracle solution to the situation faced by these neighborhoods."

The violence has also cast doubt on the success of France’s model of seeking to integrate its large immigrant community – its Muslim population, at an estimated five million, is Western Europe’s largest – by playing down differences between ethnic groups. But rather than be embraced as full and equal citizens, immigrants and their French-born children often complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities.

Opposition groups accused the government of letting the situation spiral out of control, either by failing to act quickly enough or letting in too many immigrants over the years.

Public officials have reacted with a mix of political name-calling and renewed promises to improve living conditions for France's poor. While state agencies hesitated, leaving the police to restore order with tear gas and raids, independent Muslim leaders from local mosques stepped in to organize peaceful demonstrations and to dispatch mediators into neighborhoods to calm young people.

“We see that the situation in certain neighborhoods is not getting better at all, but degenerating,” Socialist Party President Jean-Marc Ayrault told LCI television, who said Chirac’s conservatives “did not know how to take control.”

Right-wing French MP Philippe de Villiers, who has said he wants to “stop the Islamisation of France,” told RTL radio that the problem stemmed from the “failure of a policy of massive and uncontrolled immigration.”

Minister of Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had to react “firmly” but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to have dealt with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades.

“We cannot hide the truth: that for 30 years we have not done enough,” he told France-2 television.

The grievances have been further fuelled by France's Interior Minister Sarkozy’s hard-line law-and-order policies, who has all but declared his candidacy for president in the 2007 elections.

Faced with smaller-scale outbreaks of violence in slum areas during the past few months, he railed against "riff-raff" and pledged "zero tolerance" for delinquents.

Just one week before the riots exploded, he promised a “war without mercy” on violence and petty crime in the suburbs.

Residents and opposition politicians have accused Sarkozy of fanning tensions with his tough police tactics and talk — including calling troublemakers "scum."

"Sarkozy's language has added oil to the fire. He should really weigh his words," said Kaci, whose daughter lost her gym. "I'm proud to live in France, but this France disappoints me."

Arab-descent French immigrant, Mouloud, 70, said he was deeply shocked by the interior minister’s comments last month, when he vowed to “clean up” the “rabble” in the suburbs, using a water-cannon.

Sarkozy has cancelled his trip next week to Pakistan and Afghanistan. PM Villepin said he was counting on Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to deal with the situation — to “take the necessary measures.”

Azouz Begag, the feisty Minister for Equal Opportunities and a native of the suburban housing projects, has advocated a different approach, blaming the outbreak of violence on a persistent sense of disenfranchisement in the slums that is aggravated by the failure of the state to include minorities in the security forces.

He has called for a full public debate on France's policies for assimilating immigrants and overcoming discrimination. "After all," he said recently, "it's not uninteresting to see that two ministers do not see the same France."

(Agencies)