Hundreds of Cars Burnt in France, Over 500 Arrested During ‘Traditional’ New Year Unrest

The New Normal - France

FILE PHOTO: Firefighters extinguish a burning car during New Year celebrations in Lille,

northern France, December 31, 2015. © Pascal Rossignol / Reuters

New Year’s Eve celebrations in France have turned out to be not only a time of joy, but also a frantic spell for police and emergency service personnel who faced mass disorder across the country.

The number of vehicles torched during the festivities that spiralled out of control in Paris and other French cities have surpassed 1,000, the French Interior Ministry said in a statement reviewing the New Year’s Eve celebrations. The number of vehicle arson attacks “slightly exceeded” last year's figures, when 935 cars were set alight, the ministry added.

The statement said further that 510 people were arrested during the festivities, calling it a “significant increase” in comparison to last year’s 454 arrests. The number of people charged with various offenses also jumped slightly from 301 to 349, according to the ministry.

Smooth and Serene - Astonishing!

All things considered, the ministry said New Year was celebrated “serenely” and ran “smoothly,” describing all the incidents as just “a certain number of ordinary disorders.” For France, though, such "incidents" have evolved into some sort of a “tradition.”

The practice to set cars alight on New Year’s Eve as a symbol of protest reportedly originated in the '90s in the poorest areas of the country’s east, around Strasbourg. The burning of cars has been used since as an expression social discontent, occurring almost every year.

The highest number of such incidents were registered between 2005 and 2009. In 2010 and 2011 the interior ministry declined to release any figures, drawing criticism that the numbers could have been too embarrassing for the government.

This time, however, France's New Year celebrations were marred by a number of particularly violent incidents. About 11 law enforcement officers, both from the police and gendarmerie, were injured in various incidents that took place on New Year’s Eve, according to the interior ministry.

I'm sure glad it was 'serene'!

One particular case provoked widespread public indignation and caught the attention of the French President Emmanuel Macron. Three officers were injured in the Paris’s southeastern suburb of Chennevieres-sur-Marne as police were called to stop a group of several dozens of people from forcing their way into a private party.

The incident quickly descended into violence, with the angry mob severely beating the officers, including a female. Videos of the incident were subsequently posted on social media, provoking public fury. The footage show a policewoman lying on the ground as she is being kicked by the crowd.

Macron condemned the episode on Twitter as “a cowardly and criminal lynching.” He also demanded that those guilty of committing the assault “be found and punished.”

Almost 1,000 Cars Torched Around France on New Year's Eve

 But government insists it 'went particularly well'

A car on fire in Paris CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

Henry Samuel, Paris, Telegraph 

Vandals in France torched 945 parked cars over New Year's Eve in an arson rampage that has become a sinister annual "tradition" and amid a row over whether the government had sought to play down the figures.

According to the French interior ministry, the total of 945, which included cars that were either "totally destroyed" or "more lightly affected", amounted to a 17 per cent rise compared to last year.

Despite this, New Year's Eve "went off without any major incident", the interior ministry insisted in a statement, adding that there were only "a few troubles with public order",

In fact, police arrested 454 people over the night, 301 of whom were taken into custody. 

I guess the word 'few' has many definitions.

On Sunday, the ministry had chosen to release a much lower figure of 650 cars torched, as this only indicated the number of vehicles "set on fire" and not those engulfed in the ensuing flames.

So if you set one car on fire and the car next to it burns, it doesn't count; it's a freebee!

The lower figure enabled it to claim: "Once again this year, the overall  number of vehicles burned demonstrates that, however intolerable, the phenomenon is contained". By this calculation, the rise, it said, was only 48 cars.

But the the lower figure prompted the far-right Front National to denounce what it called the government's "extremely hazy security record".

"The new interior minister Bruno Le Roux…(initially) didn't communicate the number of vehicles burned and considers that the number of cars directly set on fire to be 'contained' while even this constitutes a signifiant rise of 8 per cent," the FN said in a statement.

Le Monde, the national daily newspaper, also accused the ministry of muddying the waters.

The government responded that the figures released were the "most pertinent and the most coherent". 

"There is absolutely no attempt at hiding anything," said Pierre Henry Brandet, an interior ministry spokesman.

"You have to look at the trend over several years, and what is significant is that there has been a significant drop over five years,"he said.

But, M Brandet, it doesn't help if the drop came as a result of how you count the number of cars. Is that method of counting consistent through the years? Statistics are meaningless otherwise.

Mr Brandet conceded, however, that the figure was still too high, adding: "These incidents are not tolerable and the perpetrators must be found and answer for their acts before justice."

Over New Year, a fire fighter in the eastern department of Ain was hurt while trying to extinguish one car. 

In Nice, where security has been extremely tight since the deadly Bastille Day truck attack of last year, two police officers were hurt when revellers threw "projectiles" at them. 

Bruno le Roux, the interior minister, said that no attack on security would not be tolerated. 

"I regret that once again there were too many instances of security forces being hit with objects, or faced with attacks or insults," he said.

But he thanked the tens of thousands of police and firefighters, adding that they "allowed December 31st to go off particularly well". 

With France under a state of emergency since a spate of terror attacks, some 90,000 security forces were out in its streets on New Year's Eve to police mass gatherings such on Paris' famed Champs-Elysées, where half a million revellers convened.

French domestic intelligence agents also reportedly swooped on a string of individuals ahead of festivities who they suspected might have been tempted to wreak violence.

The custom of setting vehicles alight on New Year’s Eve is said to have kicked off around Strasbourg, eastern France in the 1990s, in the the city’s deprived, high-immigrant districts.

It quickly caught on among disaffected youths in cities across the country, and is seen by some as a litmus test of general social unrest.

The most notorious spate of car burnings in recent years was seen in the 2005 riots when hundreds of vehicles were torched.

As stated above, the 'tradition' began in mainly Muslim areas. Who knows how many Muslims were involved in this year's event but it is safe to say many. Of course, the police or government will never tell us, they don't want you blaming Muslims for doing what they do.

Meanwhile, France is in a state of emergency; 90,000 police or military were on the streets; nearly a thousand cars burnt; police were attacked; several hundred people were arrested; and the government declares it a good night! Good grief!

Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy briefly abandoned issuing a breakdown of New Year's Eve car burnings in 2010-11 amid fears this was sparking copycat actions, but it has since been re-instated.