France’s interior minister visited a Paris district to present a plan for increased security following the gang beating of a Jewish teen.
A week after the violent beating of Rudy Haddad, 17, in the northeast district of the capital, Michele Alliot-Marie visited the ethnically diverse neighborhood Saturday to present a plan to increase the number of police patrols in the district.
In addition, Justice Minister Rachida Dati announced in an interview that appeared Sunday in the weekly le Journal du Dimanche an initiative aimed at thwarting gang activity. Police officials have reported regular interethnic and interreligious fighting by gangs in and near the 19th district’s Buttes-Chaumont Park. Alliot-Marie said she would add 50 weekend police officers to the area and 20 daily plain-clothes officers trained in gang-related and other criminal activity common to France’s immigrant-heavy ghettos, or “banlieues.” She also asked the socialist mayor of the district to “accelerate” an initiative to add surveillance cameras to the neighborhood park. In the Journal du Dimanche interview, Dati announced the creation of a new detailed police tally of gangs, including their modes of operation. The announcement came in response to clashes between youth and police last weekend at the start of the summer vacation, but also will be applied to interethnic clashes in areas such as the 19th district. “The idea is to identify gangs, anticipate their movements, know how they are constructed, how they function, how they act,” Dati told the Journal du Dimanche.
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