Sarkozy defends crime policies

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy defended his tough crime policies yesterday after a fourth night of riots in a Paris suburb in which tear gas was fired into a mosque.

Mr Sarkozy, addressing police officers, vowed to find how tear gas had been fired into the Muslim place of worship, an incident which had helped fuel the disturbances.

Youths hurled rocks and set fire to cars in the northeastern Clichy-sous-Bois suburb of the French capital, where many immigrants and poor families live in high-rise housing estates notorious for youth violence.

"I want these people to be able to live in peace," Mr Sarkozy told reporters as he mingled with local residents outside the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture in Bobigny, which oversees Clichy-sous-Bois.

French television said six police officers were hurt and 11 people arrested in violence partly fuelled by the incident at the mosque. Mr Sarkozy promised an inquiry.

"I am, of course, available to the imam of the Clichy mosque to let him have all the details in order to understand how and why a tear gas bomb was sent into this mosque," he told about 170 police officers at the prefecture.

Mr Sarkozy made his name by cutting crime figures during his first stint as interior minister from 2002 to last year, and is trying to retain his popularity with voters ahead of an expected bid for the presidency in 2007.

He deflected criticism of his crime policies from the opposition Socialists, saying trouble had been brewing in Paris suburbs for years.