The announcement came as rioters in the southern city of Toulouse attacked an empty bus and pelted police with firebombs and rocks Monday evening. A 61-year-old man died of wounds sustained in an attack as he tried to put out a trash can fire, the first fatality in 12 days of civil unrest that has shocked the country.
"Wherever it is necessary, prefects will be able to put in place a curfew under the authority of the interior minister, if they think it will be useful to permit a return to calm and ensure the protection of residents. That is our number one responsibility," Villepin said on TF1 television.
but this is france they didn't put it out because of public saftey but because of political safety
"Where is the president of the republic when such grave things happen?" asked opposition Socialist party leader François Hollande on Sunday, criticizing Jacques Chirac for his silence since appealing for "dialogue" last Wednesday. "I would like to hear from him."
The right-wing nationalist leader Philippe de Villiers urged the government to "send the army into the suburbs" to put down what he said was "looking more and more like an ethnic civil war."
though there is some hope from all this
Sarkozy will take comfort from an opinion poll released Sunday showing that 57 percent of French voters have a "very good" or "fairly good" impression of him, even though they are almost equally divided over whether he has been effective in his fight against insecurity.
The interior minister has attracted wide media coverage of his nightly trips to the trouble zones, rallying police and fire department officers.
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