Citing two police investigations,
The New York Times reported that the incident began at 17:20 on Thursday, 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois when police were called to a construction site to investigate a possible break-in. Three teenagers, chased by the police, climbed a wall to hide in a power substation. Six youths were detained by 17:50. During questioning at the police station in Livry-Gargan at 18:12, blackouts occurred at the station and in nearby areas. The police said that these were caused by the electrocution of two boys, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré; a third boy, Muhittin Altun, suffered electric shock injury from the power substation they were hiding in.
The New York Times wrote: There is controversy over whether the teens were actually being chased. The local prosecutor, François Molins, said that although they believed so, the police were actually after other suspects attempting to avoid an identity check. This event ignited pre-existing tensions. Protesters told
The Associated Press the unrest was an expression of frustration with high unemployment and police harassment and brutality. "People are joining together to say we've had enough", said one protester. "We live in
ghettos. Everyone lives in fear." The rioters' suburbs are also home to a large, mostly North African and Sub-Saharan African, immigrant population, allegedly adding religious tensions, which some commentators believed contribute further to such frustrations and the discrimination against Muslims following the
September 11 attacks and the subsequent
war in Iraq. According to
Pascal Mailhos, head of the
Renseignements Généraux (French intelligence agency) radical Islamism or
Islamic terrorism had no influence over the 2005 civil unrest in France. ==Timeline== While tension had been building among the juvenile population in France, action was not taken until the reopening of schools in autumn, since most of the French population is on holiday during the summer months. However, on 27 October 2005, in Clichy-sous-Bois, late in the afternoon, about ten residents came back on foot from the stadium, where they spent the afternoon playing football. Along the way, they walked near a big building site. A local resident reported an attempted robbery near the construction site to police which then sent a car. The national police tried to arrest six French youths of African or North African origin: four in the Vincent Auriol park and two others in the cemetery which adjoins the electrical substation EDF (Electricité de France) where three others who escaped took refuge – Bouna Traoré (15 years), Zyed Benna (17 years), and Muhittin Altun (17 years). Trying to hide in the electrical substation, Bouna Traoré and Zyed Benna died by electrocution. The third, Muhittin Altun, was seriously burned, but recovered and returned to the district. Shortly after this incident, riots began. Initially confined to the Paris area, the unrest subsequently spread to other areas of the
Île-de-France région, and spread through the outskirts of France's urban areas, also affecting some rural areas. After 3 November it spread to other cities in France, affecting all 15 of the large
aires urbaines in the country. Thousands of vehicles were burned, and at least one person was killed by the rioters. Close to 2900 rioters were arrested. On 8 November, President
Jacques Chirac declared a
state of emergency, effective at midnight. Despite the new regulations, riots continued, though on a reduced scale, the following two nights, and again worsened the third night. On 9 November and the morning of 10 November a school was burned in
Belfort, and there was violence in
Toulouse,
Lille,
Strasbourg,
Marseille, and
Lyon. On 10 November and the morning of 11 November, violence increased overnight in the Paris region, and there were still a number of police wounded across the country. According to the
Interior Minister, violence, arson, and attacks on police worsened on the 11th and morning of the 12th, and there were further attacks on electricity substations, causing a blackout in the northern part of
Amiens. Rioting took place in the city center of Lyon on Saturday, 12 November, as young people attacked cars and threw rocks at riot police who responded with tear gas. Also that night, a nursery school was torched in the southern town of Carpentras. On the night of the 14th and the morning of the 15th, 215 vehicles were burned across France and 71 people were arrested. Thirteen vehicles were torched in central Paris, compared to only one the night before. In the suburbs of Paris, firebombs were thrown at the treasury in
Bobigny and at an electrical transformer in Clichy-sous-Bois, the neighborhood where the disturbances started. A daycare centre in
Cambrai and a tourist agency in
Fontenay-sous-Bois were also attacked. Eighteen buses were damaged by arson at a depot in
Saint-Étienne. The mosque in
Saint-Chamond was hit by three firebombs, which did little damage. 163 vehicles went up in flames on the 20th night of unrest, 15 to 16 November, leading the French government to claim that the country was returning to an "almost normal situation". During the night's events, a Roman Catholic church was burned and a vehicle was rammed into an unoccupied police station in
Romans-sur-Isère. In other incidents, a police officer was injured while making an arrest after youths threw bottles of acid at the town hall in
Pont-l'Évêque, and a junior high school in
Grenoble was set on fire. Fifty arrests were carried out across the country. On 16 November, the French parliament approved a three-month extension of the state of emergency (which ended on 4 January 2006) aimed at curbing riots by urban youths. The Senate on Wednesday passed the extension – a day after a similar vote in the lower house. The laws allow local authorities to impose curfews, conduct house-to-house searches and ban public gatherings. The lower house passed them by a 346–148 majority, and the Senate by 202–125.
Salah Gaham's death Salah Gaham was a French concierge, born in Algeria. On the night of 2 November 2005, three cars were burned in the basement of the Forum, the building where he worked in
Besançon. He attempted to extinguish the fire but fell unconscious due to smoke inhalation. Firefighters attempted to resuscitate him but were unsuccessful. He died at the age of 34; this was the first death caused by the period of civil unrest. The mayor honored him by placing his name on a local street near the Forum. The street is called "Salah Gaham Square," and is marked by a commemorative plaque. ==Context==