France boosts security on buses after arson attacks

PARIS, Oct 27 (Reuters) Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered increased security on bus routes in tough French suburbs after a spate of arson attacks linked to the anniversary of riots in its multi-ethnic suburbs.

Sarkozy said he was drafting in extra police to cope with the unrest which hit a fresh peak overnight Wednesday when three buses were torched. In one incident, an assailant held a pistol to the driver's head while others forced passengers off.

In Grigny, a suburb south of Paris where youths torched a bus a the weekend, youths stoned police and set light to a car last night.

Police say violence has been building ahead of today's first anniversary of nationwide riots in which youths from mainly immigrant backgrounds burned cars and wrecked shops.

''I have decided to call up all of the mobile forces that are available to me in order to serve those who take public transport,'' Sarkozy told reporters after an emergency meeting with transport chiefs at his ministry.

''We created a transport service which gave us spectacular results in terms of security on the metro ... we will use the same methods on the buses,'' Sarkozy added.

In January, Sarkozy announced hundreds of police would patrol French trains as part of a new force intended to stamp out violent crime on the network.

Transport bosses had earlier yesterday threatened to pull traffic off routes in some troubled neighbourhoods in response to the arson attacks on their vehicles.

Unrest in the suburbs, where many face unemployment, poverty and discrimination, could feature prominently in next spring's presidential elections for which Sarkozy is the conservative frontrunner.

POLICE ANGER Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a possible challenger next April, told a party meeting Sarkozy should withdraw police reinforcements from the tinderbox suburbs.

''If you want to restore calm in the coming days, if you don't want the anniversary of the events of a year ago to be a drama for France, you must make a signal,'' he said.

''So I call on you Nicolas Sarkozy, to withdraw the coach loads of police from the housing estates.'' Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, another Sarkozy rival who many believe could yet challenge the interior minister, promised ''exemplary punishment'' for the perpetrators.

''We cannot accept the unacceptable ... We refuse to see no-go zones created in our country,'' Villepin told a news conference in the northwestern suburb of Cergy-Pontoise.

France Info radio said 11 officers had been summoned by an investigating magistrate over the electrocution of two youths whose deaths sparked the 21 nights of rioting last year.

The officers were allegedly present when the pair jumped inside an electrical substation to hide from pursuing police.

If confirmed, the report could further anger police unions already up in arms over the ''urban guerrilla warfare'' their members face. They say 14 officers are hurt a day in the tough neighbourhoods that ring many of France's large cities.

In the first six months of 2006, some 21,000 cars were burnt out and some 2,882 attacks registered against the police, fire and ambulance services, the RG police intelligence service said.

Reuters DKS VP0500