Paris burns for 8th straight night...

So, now the Frenchies have been able to defend Paris for more than a week. Thus beating their previous defense of Paris by about... well.. more than a week. Of course, this time they are fighting other French rather than the Wermacht. Oh well, who are we Americans to quibble with disaffected youth? Karma is a b-tch isn't it Chirac? Paris Burns By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press Writer The Associated Press AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France Nov 3, 2005 — Rampaging youths shot at police and firefighters Thursday after burning car dealerships and public buses and hurling rocks at commuter trains, as eight days of riots over poor conditions in Paris-area housing projects spread to 20 towns. Youths ignored an appeal for calm from President Jacques Chirac, whose government worked feverishly to fend off a political crisis amid criticism that it has ignored problems in neighborhoods heavily populated by first- and second-generation North African and Muslim immigrants. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a string of emergency meetings with Cabinet ministers throughout the day. He told the Senate the government "will not give in" to violence in the troubled suburbs.French Rioters Shoot at Police, Fire Crews "Order and justice will be the final word in our country," Villepin said. "The return to calm and the restoration of public order are the priority our absolute priority." The riots started last Thursday after the electrocution deaths of two teenagers who ran from a soccer game and hid in a power station in the northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after they saw police enter the area. Youths in the neighborhood said police chased the boys to their death. French authorities have said that officers were investigating a suspected burglary and not pursuing the boys, a view backed up by an interim report by the national police inspectors office released Thursday. Investigators said the boys Mauritania-born Traore Bouna, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, of Tunisia knew of the dangers of hiding in an electric substation as they sought to evade police. The report also cites two witnesses saying they did not see the boys being chased. A third boy, Muttin Altun, 17, was badly burned. Separate administrative and judicial investigations into the accidental deaths also were under way. By Wednesday night, violence triggered by the deaths had spread to at least 20 Paris-region towns, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government official for the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris where the violence has been concentrated. He said youths in the region fired four shots at riot police and firefighters but caused no injuries.