Awake

Twelfth Night of Riots in France Triggers Emergency Laws

The following quote is taken from the following link: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | France suffers 12th night of violence

The violence is forcing France to confront anger that has been building for decades in neglected suburbs and among the French-born children of Arab and African immigrants.

France's Muslim community, of about 5 million people, is the largest in western Europe.

In private comments more conciliatory than his warning on Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, the president, Jacques Chirac, acknowledged in a meeting yesterday with the Latvian president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, that France had not integrated immigrant youths, she said.

Mr Chirac deplored the "ghettoisation of youths of African or north African origin" and recognised the "incapacity of French society to fully accept them", Ms Vike-Freiberga said.

In terms of material destruction, the unrest is France's worst since the second world war.