Youths jeered and jostled the French interior minister on Tuesday in the northern city of Amiens, where he met local officials following overnight riots in which police were fired at with buckshot and pelted with missiles. President Francois Hollande said the state would "mobilise all its resources to combat this violence", which has shaken depressed quarters of major French cities at regular intervals in the past decade.
Unrest is often blamed on a combination of poor job prospects, racial discrimination, a widespread sense of alienation from mainstream society and perceived hostile policing. Interior Minister Manuel Valls was met by a crowd of about 100 young men when he arrived in Amiens to discuss two nights of violence apparently sparked by tension over spot police checks on residents.
"Calm down! Calm down!" Valls yelled as the crowd jostled him while he entered the town hall surrounded by bodyguards. Valls said 17 police were hurt in the rioting, some hit by shotgun pellets, others hit by a hail of missiles thrown by around 100 youths who gathered in the city's northern districts.
"Firearms! Can it be considered normal that people turn firearms on police? It's unacceptable ... law and order must be restored," Valls told a news conference, adding that a minority of people were terrorising the local community. One officer was in a serious condition, the city's Socialist Mayor Gilles Demailly told Reuters. Hollande, who ordered Valls to break off their visit to south-eastern France and travel to Amiens, said not enough money had been put into security in recent years. "Our priority is security which means that the next budget will include additional resources for the gendarmerie and the police," he said.
The interior ministry dispatched reinforcements to Amiens, parts of which had already classified as a "priority security zone" in need of extra policing. The policy formed part of the Socialists' election campaign pledge on law and order. Riot police and gendarmes sat in two dozen vans parked in the northern neighbourhood where a recent face-lift included the building of a gymnasium, swimming pool and cultural centre.