A policeman was in hospital with serious head injuries on Wednesday after youths attacked him and a colleague in an assault that renewed fears about violence and crime in France's tinderbox suburbs.
PARIS: A policeman was in hospital with serious head injuries on Wednesday after youths attacked him and a colleague in an assault that renewed fears about violence and crime in France's tinderbox suburbs.
The police captain suffered a double fracture of the skull and almost lost an eye after he and his driver were lured into a trap and assaulted in the Corbeil-Essonnes suburb south of the capital, said a police union official.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was to visit the officer in hospital after meeting senior staff to discuss the attack, which came the same day as a leaked report by a top government official that warned of soaring crime in his area.
“I will do everything to find those responsible. We will find them, one by one. Not one of them will remain unpunished,” Sarkozy told reporters, condemning Tuesday's late night attack as “a veritable lynching”.
He said 300 extra officers would be sent to the gritty Seine-Saint-Denis department that has been at the centre of law and order concerns.
David Barbas, national secretary of the SNOP police union, said the officers were stoned while driving in an unmarked car.
“They got out to see who had done it when about 20 youths set upon them,” he said.
“The captain suffered a double fracture of the skull. He was operated on. His life is no longer in danger and they saved his eye,” he added, but would need further surgery.
Recent crime figures reported a sharp rise in violence, including attacks on police.
The head of France's crime statistics body said that was in part due to Sarkozy's decision to order police back into tough neighbourhoods since the right won power in 2002.
Police have a difficult relationship with youths in many poor neighbourhoods and fought pitched battles with rioters during three weeks of disturbances last year.
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