Clash in France Leaves 7 People InjuredThe Associated Press, October 2, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100200783.htmlParis (AP) -- Police northwest of Paris used tear gas, rubber pellets and fired a warning shot to disperse a crowd that surrounded their vehicle after they tried to stop a driver for not wearing a seat belt, a police union official said Monday.
Six officers and a civilian were reported slightly injured in the clash Sunday night that was reminiscent of riots and violence that swept economically depressed French areas last year.
The clash broke out after police tried to stop a driver in Les Mureaux, 20 miles from central Paris, for not wearing a seat belt, said Patrick Trotignon, a police union official. The driver refused to stop, and later crashed into another police car that tried to block his path.
A crowd gathered, growing to about 250 people, Trotignon said. Some carried homemade shields, pick handles, stones and threatened the police officers, saying: 'You won't get out of the car alive,'' he added.
An officer fired a warning shot in the air, and others fired rubber pellets and tear gas to clear a path to a nearby school, where they waited for reinforcements, Trotignon said.
The crowd set a police car, and the car that was initially stopped, on fire, before dispersing when more police officers arrived. Six officers and one resident suffered minor injuries, Trotignon said.
French authorities have kept a watchful eye on low-income housing projects in suburbs nationwide where riots by youths, many unemployed and from immigrant backgrounds, erupted nearly a year ago and continued for three weeks.
Last month, a band of up to 30 youths armed with makeshift weapons attacked two riot police patrolling a Paris region housing project. One of the officers suffered a double skull fracture.
But the French are not worried. Instead, they celebrate their
"diversity" by constructing an "Immigration Museum". Vive le Frogs!Ground breaks on Paris 'immigration museum'Agence France Press, October 2, 2006
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=25&story_id=33500Paris (AFP) -- Work officially opened Monday on a new museum of immigration to open next year in Paris in keeping with a campaign promise by President Jacques Chirac.
The museum, which will stage its first exhibition next April, is to be sited in the 'Palais de la Porte Dorée' — an art deco building in the east of the French capital originally constructed for France's 'Colonial Exhibition' of 1931.
Following the changes in the political climate, it has since been a museum of the colonies, then a museum of overseas France, and most recently a museum of African and Oceanic art.
In 2003 the museum closed and its collection was transferred to the new Quai Branly museum of tribal art that opened earlier this year.
Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said the new museum would be 'a place of memory to be sure, but also a place of reflexion, of sharing, of learning and communication on the considerable role played by immigration and immigrants in our history.'