Attack on police highlights French suburb fears

PARIS, Sep 20 (Reuters) A policeman was in hospital with serious head injuries today after youths attacked him and a colleague in an assault that renewed fears about violence and crime in France's tinderbox suburbs.

The police captain suffered a double fracture of the skull and almost lost an eye after he and his driver were lured into a trap and assaulted in the Corbeil-Essonnes suburb south of the capital, said a police union official.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was to visit the officer in hospital after meeting senior staff to discuss the attack, which came the same day as a leaked report by a top government official that warned of soaring crime in his area.

''I will do everything to find those responsible. We will find them, one by one. Not one of them will remain unpunished,'' Sarkozy told reporters, condemning yesterday's late night attack as ''a veritable lynching.

David Barbas, national secretary of the SNOP police union, said the two were stoned while driving in an unmarked car.

''They got out to see who had done it when about 20 youths set upon them,'' he said.

''The captain suffered a double fracture of the skull. He was operated on. His life is no longer in danger and they saved his eye,'' he added, but would need further surgery.

Recent crime figures reported a sharp rise in violence, including attacks on police. The head of France's crime statistics body said that was in part due to Sarkozy's decision to order police back into tough neighbourhoods since the right won power in 2002.

Police have a difficult relationship with youths in many poor neighbourhoods and fought pitched battles with rioters during three weeks of disturbances last year.

CRY OF DESPAIR Sarkozy said many rioters were the children of first and second generation immigrants and pushed through a new crack down on illegal immigration, saying France could not afford to allow in more people who might also fail to integrate into society.

Some aides say renewed rioting could sink Sarkozy's hopes of running for president next year and revive the wilted ambitions of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who responded to the latest attack by expressing support for police.

''The government's policy is to do everything, across the country, to reduce insecurity, to provide adapted responses and in particular to ensure that those who have this task can do so with all the necessary guarantees,'' Villepin said.

Yesterday's attack came after the Le Monde daily said the prefect, or top government official, for the Seine-Saint-Denis district north of Paris had written a four-page confidential report to Sarkozy warning about rocketing crime.

It had jumped 7.64 per cent since the start of the year, ''a deterioration in crime not been seen for many a year,'' Le Monde quoted prefect Jean-Francois Cordet as saying. It was the fourth warning he had written this year, the paper added.

The note panned soft sentences by judges and warned of rising demotivation among police. Turnover of staff was high in the economically depressed area, which has some of the worst crime figures in France, Le Monde said.

The situation was also playing into the hands of local Islamic extremists Cordet's note said.

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