Still out of control

The France riots don't seem to be getting under control anytime soon: They hit a new peak today with the number of burned cars rising to 1,408 and over 390 people arrested. The violence isn't stopping though, now that Policemen are getting shot at by the rioters who ambushed them. Rampaging youths injured 30 policemen, including two hit by buckshot, and torched hundreds of cars overnight as rioting raged on for an 11th night in France despite a vow from President Jacques Chirac to restore public order. Two riot squad officers were hit by buckshot fired at them in an "ambush" in suburbs south of Paris, police said. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy visited them in hospital late Sunday and expressed shock that they were injured in the head. And they are not stopping there. Elsewhere, club-wielding gangs roaming low-income neighbourhoods on the outskirts of major cities targeted officers and set fire to scores of vehicles and properties. A 3,000 square metre building housing film studios was torched at Asnieres beside the Seine river, with flames 10 metres (30 feet) high threatening a neighbouring warehouse. Nearly 100 firemen with 25 appliances were fighting the blaze "of criminal origin," police said. Two churches, one in the north and one in the south of the country, were hit by firebombs but little damage was caused. You know, that comparison of calling it a civil war, well, it's starting to look it. But fear not people, Chirac is on the case. President Jacques Chirac on Sunday vowed to restore order in France after riots in Paris spread across the country and began to unnerve his European neighbors. [...] "The Republic is quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear," Chirac said after a special domestic security council met to respond to the latest violence in which 1,300 vehicles went up in flames. "The law must have the last word," Chirac said in his first public comments since the riots started in the poor suburbs, noting the importance of the respect of all, the law and the equality of chances. Ok, where is the french army? Howcome a state or martial law has not been declared? What the hell are they doing? What is Chirac waiting for? I mean, they torch nursery homes, burn churches and synagogues, shoot at buses, put disabeld old people on fire, shoot and ambush the police and burned over 1400 cars and still no army? What will constitutes a martial-law declaring emergency here? What are they waiting for? After they burn down the Louvre? The Police can't handle it. Send in the army. End of story!