State of Emergency Declared in France

"President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency Tuesday, paving the way for curfews to be imposed on riot-hit cities and towns in an extraordinary measure to halt France's worst civil unrest in decades after 12 nights of violence.

...The state-of-emergency decree _ invoked under a 50-year-old law _ allows curfews where needed and will become effective at midnight Tuesday, with an initial 12-day limit...

...The recourse to a 1955 state-of-emergency law that dates back to France's war in Algeria was a measure both of the gravity of mayhem that has spread to hundreds of French towns and cities and of the determination of Chirac's sorely tested government to quash it."

..."We are facing determined individuals, structured gangs," Villepin told parliament on Tuesday. He vowed that France will "guarantee public order to all of our citizens."

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