Rivals accused rightist presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy of worsening tension between youths and police on Wednesday after clashes at a Paris train station overnight. Officials said Tuesday's confrontation at the Gare du Nord terminal began when police arrested a 33-year illegal immigrant who attacked staff when asked to show his ticket.
Youths at the station, a hub for trains to suburbs north of Paris, said police had manhandled the suspect. Shouting "Sarkozy hypocrite", hundreds of youths threw flower pots and bottles at police during unrest that lasted for several hours. Police used teargas to disperse youths who smashed shop windows. Thirteen people were arrested.
Sarkozy confirmed his status as a law-and-order hard-liner in riots that hit the poor suburbs around Paris and other French cities in 2005, and rivals were quick to blame him for fomenting a climate of hostility between youths and police.
Socialist officials said Tuesday's clashes were the legacy of the "provocative habits and language" of Sarkozy while its presidential candidate Segolene Royal said the violence highlighted Sarkozy's policy failures.
"In five years with a rightist government that has made security its main campaign issue, you can see that it's failure all down the line," Royal told Canal+ television. Sarkozy, who stepped down as interior minister on Monday to focus on his campaign, justified the police action. "I want to tell the French that I will not be on the side of fraudsters, cheats, dishonest people ... those who think that in order to get heard, they must demolish a train station and break public equipment paid for by taxpayers," he said.
Francois Baroin, Sarkozy's successor as interior minister, said the man stopped by ticket inspectors was of Congolese origin and well-known to police. After initially being dominated by economic questions, France's election campaign has increasingly come to focus on issues of security and immigration this month.
Centrist presidential hopeful Francois Bayrou, who trails Royal and Sarkozy in opinion polls, avoided criticising Sarkozy by name, but said: "It's very important to end this climate of perpetual confrontation between police and some citizens."
The clashes came a week after police sparked an outcry by detaining a Paris teacher for several hours after she tried to prevent the arrest of an illegal immigrant near her school.
Le Monde daily said in an editorial both events highlighted the "climate of incomprehension" between police and some French. Sarkozy has sought to soften the tough image he built up as "France's top policeman", meeting factory workers and quoting widely from poets in recent campaign speeches. But critics say he remains a hate-figure for many in the neighbourhoods hit by the 2005 riots, the worst in 40 years.