FIRST THE UNIONS THEN THE YOUTHS...:

Police and protesters clash near Paris (Katrin Bennhold, November 27, 2007, IHT)

Dodging rocks and projectiles, the police lined the streets of this tense suburb Tuesday where angry youths have vowed to seek revenge for the deaths of two teenagers who died in a weekend collision with a police car.

Police union officials warned that the violence was escalating into urban guerrilla warfare, with shotguns aimed at officers — a rare sight in the last major outbreak of suburban unrest, in 2005.

Mr. Sarkozy could hardly have asked for more useful foes.

MORE:
In French Suburbs, Same Rage, but New Tactics (ELAINE SCIOLINO, 11/27/07, NY Times)

[W]hile the scale of the unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it, in some sense, more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police. [...]

It is legal to own a shotgun in France — as long as the owner has a license — and police circles were swirling with rumors that the bands of youths were procuring more weapons.

“This is a real guerrilla war,” Mr. Ribeiro told RTL radio, warning that the police, who have struggled to avoid excessive force, will not be fired upon indefinitely without responding.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 27, 2007 9:22 PM