Posted on January 5, 2009

More Than a Thousand Cars Torched on New Year’s Eve

Reuters, January 1, 2009

At least 445 cars were torched over the night of New Year’s Eve in France, a 20 percent rise on last year, but there were relatively few clashes with police, the Interior Ministry and police said on Thursday.

Car burnings are regular occurrences in France but the registering the New Year’s Eve total has become something of a tradition since they achieved symbolic status in the violent rioting that shook many of the country’s poor suburbs in 2005.

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An Interior Ministry official said that as of 6:00 a.m. (0500 GMT), 445 car burnings had been registered, against 372 at the same time a year before and police had made 288 arrests, compared with 259 on Dec. 31, 2007.

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There were around 50 burnings in the eastern city of Strasbourg, where police made 17 arrests, including four people caught while setting fire to cars.

In the southern city of Toulouse, 12 cars were burned in areas at the edge of the city limits, while in Nantes, around 10 cars were torched although police in the western city said New Year’s Eve had been “pretty calm”.

Update: The French press reported that the Interior Ministry released a final “verified” count of 1,147 vehicles burned in France over New Year’s Eve. The number is up 30.64% from last year’s total, 878.