France condemns bus attack that leaves woman burned

PARIS, Oct 29 (Reuters) French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin condemned today an attack by vandals on a bus in the southern city of Marseille, which left a young woman severely burned and in a critical condition.

The attack yesterday sparked fears of more violence in French cities, coming as France marks the anniversary of riots that scarred the nation's poor, largely immigrant suburbs.

''Everything is being done to arrest those behind this crime as quickly as possible,'' Villepin said in a statement, adding he would organise a meeting on the safety of the country's public transport tomorrow.

Police said an unknown number of people forced their way onto the bus in the evening and torched it before the 26-year-old woman could escape. Officials said she was in a serious condition.

''It was clearly an ambush,'' prosecutor Jacques Beaume told reporters in front of the bus in Marseille, a city which had remained largely untouched by last year's riots.

''What is frightening ... is that (these people) are not just attacking police -- representatives of the state -- but are attacking the population in violent ways,'' Jean-Claude Delage from police union Alliance told LCI television.

''Apparently, they did not even ask people to get off the bus (before torching it),'' he said.

Vandals have torched at least six buses in suburbs surrounding Paris this past week in an upsurge of violence ahead of the anniversary, but no one was hurt in those attacks.

After several attacks on security forces in France's suburbs in recent weeks, police had warned that the violence could once again spiral out of control like last year.

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