France's cycle of violence

A couple of Saturdays ago I blogged on France's unceasing urban violence, discussing the large-scale destruction that had taken place in the besieged community of Saint-Dizier.
Tonight there's an update to that story, good news in fact, as several arrests have been made in the case. My hasty (and hopefully accurate) translation from a report at Yahoo France:

Some 120 police officers belonging to public Security, GPIN ["Groupes d'intervention de la police nationale", National Police Intervention Group; the equivalent of our SWAT teams], PJ [“Police Judiciaire”; Judicial Police] arrested early Tuesday 14 youths from the neighborhood of Vert-Bois in Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne), with a 15th arrested later in the day. Among them were three minors, it was revealed during a press conference by Jean-Claude Dumarets, the district attorney of the Republic of Chaumont…

The DA bowed "before the act of courage of the neighborhood inhabitants who [came forward to] testify. They have had enough". Twenty crucial testimonials were collected, of which 12 were anonymous. DNA analysis, possible due to collected evidence, notably by a fire expert, allowed several young rioters to be identified. All of the troublemakers were known to police.

Some of the youths face 20 years of prison before the felony court if it is upheld against them as having acted as leaders of «destruction or voluntary damage by explosive substances, fire or other means creating a danger for others with aggravating circumstances committed as part of an organized group."
…
On the evening of October 4, about thirty hooded youths armed with metal bars, baseball bats and Molotov cocktails had set a trap for firefighters and police, very certainly to avenge one of their own who had been arrested for violence committed a few days earlier against a police offier. The youths had set fire or damaged 41 cars, after having set fire beforehand to the HLM Office, the local MJC and a rental car agency in the neighborhood in order to attract the firefighters and police officers. Three of these officers and one firefighter were lightly wounded.

There's a new detail to the story within this last paragraph; I don't remember reading in any of the previous accounts that there was speculation such a large-scale armed assault had been organized in retaliation for an earlier arrest of a "youth".

As I read about incidents like this one, I find myself even more impressed with France's firefighters. Theirs must be a hard enough job under normal circumstances; now as they respond to calls they have to worry about whether or not they are to come face to face with the very arsonists who cause the fires they risk their lives to put out. In addition to worrying about burns, which surely is scary enough, they have to worry about getting their limbs broken or faces smashed by thugs carrying metal bars and baseball bats...

Some further pictures illustrating the aftermath of the original October 4 attack can be seen in this french-language video taken from France's nightly news:


Emeute à Saint-Dizier
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