French rioters shoot at police, Chirac vows action

GRIGNY, France, Monday (Reuters) Rioters fired shots at police and set hundreds of cars ablaze in an 11th night of violence in France on Monday, hours after President Jacques Chirac vowed to restore order.

Ten policemen were injured, two of them seriously, when a group of youths fired at police with shotguns in Grigny, south of Paris, police said. One officer was treated with lead shot wounds to the throat, another suffered injuries to one leg.

"They really shot at officers. This is real, serious violence. It's not like the previous nights. I am very concerned because this is mounting," one police officer said.

Another spokesman said the shots could probably not have been fatal due to the distance from which they were fired, but were clearly capable of causing serious injury.

Police said at least 300 cars had been set ablaze in several towns across France and 37 people had been arrested.The fresh violence came just hours after Chirac said the law would have the last word over the riots, making his first public comments since violence started in the poor suburbs on Oct. 27.

"The Republic is quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear," Chirac said after a domestic security council met to respond to the violence in which thousands of cars have gone up in flames.

Chirac's government has come under increased pressure to halt the riots, sparked by frustration among ethnic minorities over racism, unemployment, police treatment and their marginal place in French society. Later on Monday, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is to announce measures for France's poor suburbs, where many immigrants from Africa live in bleak social housing projects.

"We cannot accept any 'no-go' areas," Villepin said after meeting Chirac on Sunday, adding the government would step up security where necessary. Some 2,300 extra officers have already been drafted in to quell riots that have spread from Paris's suburbs to other towns, unnerving France's European neighbours.

On Sunday night, youths seized a bus in Saint-Etienne, in southern France, ordering passengers to get off and then torching the vehicle. The driver and one passenger were hurt.

In eastern Strasbourg, rioters lobbed Molotov cocktails into a primary school, and in southern Toulouse, a car was pushed towards the entrance of a metro tunnel, police said.Rioting began with the accidental electrocution of two youths apparently fleeing police.

One of France's largest Islamic groups, the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF), issued a fatwa against rioting on Sunday after officials suggested Muslim militants could be partly to blame for the violence.

"It is formally forbidden to any Muslim seeking divine grace and satisfaction to participate in any action that blindly hits private or public property or could constitute an attack on someone's life," the fatwa said. Many rioters are of North African Arab and black African descent and assumed to be Muslims.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and other officials have hinted Islamist militants may be manipulating angry teenagers to defy the French state. On Saturday night some 1,300 vehicles went up in flames across France. And for the first time, more than 30 were destroyed inside Paris rather than outlying suburbs.

Despite the worst destruction since the riots started, a police spokesman called for a sense of proportion: "It's 211 districts out of 36,000, so France is not burning."

The violence has tarnished France's image abroad, forcing Villepin to cancel a trip to Canada, while Russia and the United States have warned their citizens to avoid troubled suburbs.