Sarkozy pledges $700M for Paris suburbs

PARIS, France (CNN) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged over $700 million in aid Friday for his country's beleagured suburbs -- hotbeds of disaffection and unrest that have twice exploded into rioting in recent years.

Sarkozy announced plans to re-start neglected housing projects and move an extra 4,000 police into suburbs as part of what he called a "war without mercy" against drug dealers.

In a speech broadcast on French television, the president said 200 special forces officers would also be drafted in over a three year period.

It is hoped the plan, which was a major platform of Sarkozy's election campaign, will prevent the scenes of violence witnessed by the capital's outlying suburbs in the past years.

Since 2005, tensions in the suburbs have erupted into violent protests on two separate occasions.

In the most recent outbreak last November, gangs of youths set fire to buildings and fought with riot police after two teenagers on a motorcycle died in a collision with a police car.
Watch video of November 2007 unrest

In his speech Friday, the French leader said he wanted to do more to integrate the suburbs young people -- many of whom come from immigrant families.

He said he wanted to cut the number of young people who drop out of school, which currently stands at 150,000 per year.

He said youths not registered in school would be enrolled in a "school of the second chance", where they will receive specialist education. Students from the suburbs who come from difficult homes will also be offered the chance to stay in dormitories where they can live and work during the school term.

Sarkozy said: "I want to tell these French children, who wrongly think that -- although they are sometimes right -- that a part of French society doesn't like them. I want to tell them that no one will be judged by his skin color or his address."

According to a poll by the French newspaper Le Figaro Wednesday, 94 percent of those questioned fear the suburbs are vulnerable to outbreaks of violence.

Some 42 percent of respondents to the poll said the lack of parental control was the main cause of unrest in those neighborhoods. Thirty seven percent said gangs and drugs were responsible, while 25 percent of those questioned attributed the problem to a lack of jobs for young people.

This view conflicts with that of French politicians, who say the main cause of the problems is high unemployment.

Teenagers in these poorer neighborhoods -- many largely populated by African and Arab immigrants and their French-born children -- have rioted twice in the last 27 months, expressing their frustration with high unemployment and discrimination.

In the worst protests in 2005, the Paris suburbs were hit by over three weeks of violence after the death of two young men of North African descent, who were electrocuted hiding from police in an electrical substation. The unrest prompted the government to declare a state of emergency. E-mail to a friend

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