France to End State of Emergency This Week

The three weeks of unrest, which erupted in late October, was concentrated in poor suburbs where many North and West African immigrants live with their French-born children.

In the rioting, rampaging youths set fire to some 9,000 vehicles around the country in France's worst civil unrest since student and worker protests in 1968.

Before this weekend, the conservative government feared the unrest might flare up again during New Year's Eve celebrations. Revelers burned 425 vehicles—up from 333 the year earlier—but there were no major clashes, and the national police chief said Sunday that France had been spared a revival of the unrest.

Chirac plans to lift the state of emergency this week, more than six weeks earlier than originally planned, his office said without giving a reason. But the announcement came after the relatively violence-free New Year's celebrations.

The government is expected to formally approve the measure during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, and the state of emergency is to be lifted Wednesday.

The state of emergency allowed the use of curfews, night-and-day police searches inside homes and other exceptional measures. However, only a few towns and regions imposed curfews for minors; Paris did not.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin proposed lifting the state of emergency Monday as he and Chirac reviewed the situation, government officials said.

The state of emergency went into effect Nov. 8. A week later, lawmakers moved to prolong them for three months—a decision criticized by human rights groups and France's leftist opposition.

The Green Party and 74 law professors filed a complaint to France's highest administrative body, but the Council of State deemed the emergency measures legal in a Dec. 5 ruling.

France's state of emergency provisions were originally created to cope with a rebellion in Algeria in 1955—violence that escalated into a brutal independence war that France eventually lost.

The recent rioting broke out in a poor Paris suburb after two youths who believed police were chasing them hid in a power substation and died of electrocution.

The unrest spread throughout the country and was seen as an unleashing of pent-up frustrations over racism, discrimination, high unemployment and lack of opportunities.

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