Paris violence prompts U.S. travel warning

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LE BLANC MESNIL, France -- The United States government warned Americans yesterday to stay clear of violence-wracked Parisian suburbs, as rioting gangs of Arab and African youths, mostly Muslims, torched cars, schools and buses for an eighth straight night.

French authorities struggled to gain control of the worst rioting the country has seen in a decade.

The unrest has spread beyond the Paris area, with five cars burned in the eastern city of Dijon and 11 set afire in the southern city of Marseille.

In a particularly gruesome incident, attackers doused a 50-year-old woman on crutches with a flammable liquid and set her afire as she tried to get off a bus in the suburb of Sevran, judicial officials said.

The bus had been forced to stop because of burning objects in its path. She was rescued by the driver and hospitalized with severe burns.

Justice Minister Pascal Clement deplored the incident yesterday, saying it caused him "great emotion."

A national police spokesman, Patrick Hamon, said rioters were communicating by cell phone text messages or e-mail -- arranging meetings and warning each other about police operations.

The violence, which started Oct. 27 and has continued every night since, has exposed the discontent simmering in France's poor suburbs.

The Seine-Saint-Denis region, where the troubles are centered, is dominated by low-income housing projects that are home to many African Muslim immigrants and their children and beset by high unemployment and crime.

Across the Paris region, the burned hulks of at least 520 cars littered streets, an increase from previous nights. Five police officers were slightly injured by rioters throwing stones or bottles, the Interior Ministry said.