Violence Erupts As Its Roots Are Debated in Plaza

'I Am Not a Terrorist, I'm a Victim,' Youth Says Before French Police Move In

TOULOUSE, France, Nov. 8 -- On the broad concrete slab that is the main plaza in Reynerie, a neighborhood of Arab and black African heritage in this high-tech city, teenage boys with fibrous muscles debated with housewives Tuesday afternoon about the riots that have swept the neighborhood and much of France.

"You're scaring the children," said one stocky woman, pushing her wide-eyed 3-year-old girl out front as an exhibit. "We also have to live here, and we can't go on like this."

"I am not a terrorist, I'm a victim," responded one of the young men.

At about 7:30 p.m., the police arrived and all debate ended. Riot squads dressed in black sealed two streets and a helicopter swooped around shining spotlights on the crowd. Molotov cocktails and stones filled the air, and a truck was set aflame. Soon, tear gas floated through the parking lots and halls of the high-rise apartment blocks that make up these faceless suburban neighborhoods.

So went the latest installment of riots in Toulouse, a southwestern city that is one of the homes of Airbus, the European commercial aviation juggernaut. None of the people interviewed on the plaza offered a clear view of where the 13 days of unrest across the country was going. Their words reflected deep agreement that the community faced heartless discrimination, but divisions on how to fight it.

Unrest also continued in other parts of France on Tuesday night. In Paris, a police spokesman reported that by 9:30 p.m., 76 vehicles had been set on fire across the country. Fifty-seven people were arrested. Three towns -- Amiens, Orleans and Savigny-sur-Orge -- declared midnight curfews, using authority that the French cabinet granted in a special meeting Tuesday by invoking a half-century-old state-of-emergency law.

The violence Monday night and early Tuesday was down from the previous night, measured by the official count of burned vehicles: 1,173, compared with 1,408. That gave some French officials hope that the worst was over.

In Reynerie, residents said that the violence was driven by deep social problems: discrimination against immigrants and citizens of France of non-European origin, and the hordes of unemployed youth among them.

Chawki, a wiry 18-year-old of Algerian descent, said the message of the destruction was clear, if not the outcome. "This is the language they understand," he said, referring to the government. "They know the conclusions to draw. We are sick of being discriminated against. That is all."

Young men and boys made up the core of the crowd on the square, which sometimes numbered a few hundred. It looked like a hip-hop convention -- plenty of loose athletic outfits and sweatshirts and baseball caps worn at angles. Daily life also persisted. Old men carried fresh baguettes home for the evening meal and vendors peddled contraband cigarettes after stores closed at sunset.

One woman confronted the youths, calling for an end to the violence. She had lived in Bab el-Oued, a tough district of Algiers, during the heavy political violence of the 1990s, she said, and she did not want to live with terrorism in France. "We must get together and march on city hall, peacefully. Why burn our own cars here?" she asked.

The young men were unmoved. "I lived in Bab el-Oued, too," replied one of them, calling himself a victim and displaying a bruise on his shoulder that he said was caused by a tear gas canister fired by French police. "Who would even speak about demonstrations if we did not do what we are doing?"