Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Riots erupt in Paris suburb over teenager death
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:36:33 GMT
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Housing blocks in Bagnolet
French security forces have clashed with petrol-bomb-wielding rioters in a Paris suburb after a teenager died while fleeing a police identity check. 

Some 40 rioters in an eastern Paris suburb, Bagnolet, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and firefighters and torched 29 cars in a rampage provoked by the death of a teen pizza deliverer, Yacou Sanago. 

The 18-year-old pizza deliverer died en route to hospital after he lost control of his motorcycle and hit a metal barrier as he was trying to flee an identity check by the police, security officials speaking on condition of anonymity said. 

The angry crowd, mostly youths, smashed windows of a high school and store in Bagnolet, an Interior Ministry statement said. 

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux called for calm following the overnight suburban violence. 

Hortefeux assured the public of a thorough inquiry into the circumstances of the young man's death, stressing that "all light will be shed" on the matter. 

The internal police watchdog agency is also investigating the incident, the Associated Press reported. 

France's suburban low-income districts have a long history of violent clashes between police and residents, who have long bemoaned poverty, unemployment and discrimination against minorities. 

ZHD/CS