France tightens security at popular tourist spots

PARIS – Gendarmes mingled with shoppers and tourists Saturday on Paris’ famed Champs-Elysees, stopping some passers-by to check IDs, as riot police stood by on the capital’s grandest avenue.

Thousands more police guarded the Eiffel Tower, train stations and other famed sites as part of emergency measures enacted in response to text messages and Internet blog postings calling for “violent actions” in Paris on Saturday evening. Authorities banned public gatherings considered risky in an effort to keep the unrest that has stretched across France for 17 days from reaching inside the capital.

“This is not a rumor,” National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said, citing Paris’ best-known landmarks among potential targets. “One can easily imagine the places where we must be highly vigilant.”

But in Lyon, France’s third largest city, police fired tear gas to disperse stone-hurling youths at the historic Place Bellecour. It was the first time since the unrest began that youths clashed with police in a major city.

In separate incidents Saturday night in the southern city of Carpentras, rioters rammed burning cars into the side of a retirement home and a school. A second school and linen store were also set ablaze there.

The violence started in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on Oct. 27 when about 100 youths rioted to protest the accidental deaths of two Muslim teens who were electrocuted while hiding from police in an electricity substation.

The turmoil, marked by arson and clashes with police, quickly spread across France in housing projects plagued by unemployment and alienation. The unrest has forced France to confront its failure to integrate minorities and the anger simmering among its large African and Arab communities.

No trouble anywhere in Paris was reported overnight into today.

Rioting has weakened in intensity since the government declared a state of emergency Tuesday, empowering regions to impose curfews and conduct house searches.

Some 40 towns, suburbs and small cities have imposed curfews on minors. Paris police banned public gatherings that could “provoke or encourage disorder” from 10 a.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. today.