PARIS (AP) - Rioters in the southern French city of Toulouse set fire to a bus after sundown Monday, then pelted police with Molotov cocktails and rocks, a local official said. The rioters stopped the bus and ordered the driver to step out, then set the vehicle afire, said Francis Soutric, chief of staff at the regional prefecture in Toulouse. No passengers were inside. Clashes broke out when riot police arrived on the scene, and officers responded with tear gas bombs, he said.
Additional: Police used tear gas in Toulouse Monday night against rioters hurling heavy rocks and petrol bombs at them. A bus there was the last of more than 5,000 vehicles burned in the 11-day wave of unrest
The mayor of Raincy east of Paris, imposed a night curfew after the government failed to crack down on marauding gangs. The unrest claimed its first fatality, a 61-man beaten by a youth in the Paris suburb of Stains. Almost every town in France is gripped with peaking violence against cars, schools, buses, churches, paramedics, ambulances and police amid rising calls to bring in the army. Sunday night in Grigny south of Paris, 36 police were injured by the first gunshots fired in the 11-day riots. There are serious fears for investments and tourism in France after Japan, UK, Russia and Australia joined the US in warning citizens to avoid spreading riot centers. |