French election candidates trade accusations over station riot

The leading candidates in France's presidential campaign traded accusations Wednesday following hours of clashes the evening before between police and young rioters at one of Paris's biggest railway stations.
Socialist challenger Segolene Royal and the centrist Francois Bayrou both charged the ruling centre-right - and its candidate Nicolas Sarkozy - with creating a climate of hostility between police and youngsters from the high-immigration suburbs.
In scenes reminiscent of the three weeks of rioting that shook France in November 2005, 13 people were arrested at the Gare du Nord in seven hours of confrontations triggered by an attempt to detain a fare-dodger.
Commuters cowered in dismay as groups of young people threw projectiles at police, smashing shop-windows, advertising hoardings. A sports-shoe shop was looted. Police responded with tear-gas and baton charges, and calm was not restored till after midnight.
"We've got to this situation because for a long time the police has been used exclusively as a force for repression - ever since the arrival of Nicolas Sarkozy at the interior ministry," said Bayrou. Sarkozy stepped down on Monday from the post of interior minister, which he held for four out of the last five years.
"Of course travellers should pay for their tickets. But when a simple ticket check degenerates into such violent confrontations it proves that something isn't right," said Royal.
"After five years of a right-wing government which made law and order its campaign theme, we can see the failure. People are pitted against each other, they are afraid of each other," she said. But Sarkozy - who was at the Gare du Nord Wednesday morning to catch a train to Lille - praised the actions of the police.
"If Madame Royal wants to regularise all illegal immigrants and if the left wants to side with people who don't pay for their train tickets, that's their choice. It is not mine," Sarkozy said. "I will not side with the cheats, the fraudsters, the dishonest. I am on the side of the victims," he said.