AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France -- A gang of masked rioters set more than a dozen vehicles ablaze in a car dealership as violence spread to more suburban Paris towns over the alleged rape of a young black man with a police baton, authorities said Wednesday.
Police made 17 arrests, according to the prefecture of the Saint-Seine-Denis region, a working class region northeast of Paris with a large minority population.
The violence, which has now spread to at least five towns, erupted after a 22-year-old man was allegedly sodomized with a police officer's baton during an identity check last week. One officer was charged Sunday with aggravated rape and three others were charged with aggravated assault. Police deny the allegations.
Shock gripped France when a video, apparently showing the young man's arrest, circulated on the internet. It showed him on the ground against a wall surrounded by four men, who appeared to be roughing him up.
In Aulnay-Sous-Bois, where the incident took place on Thursday, a gang of masked youth set fire to cars or bashed them in a private parking lot belonging to a Citroen dealership, damaging all 17.
Surveillance videos seen by The Associated Press show the men running through the outdoor parking lot dumping jerry cans of an inflammable substance on cars, which went up in flames. Some bashed the cars with instruments.
The owner of the Citroen franchise said 14 cars, including a special vehicle for the handicapped, were burned and three damaged from blunt force. The owner, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, estimated damages at 200,000 euros (US$214,050.)
Five of the arrests were in Aulnay, but it was unclear if any of those who invaded the parking lot were among them.
The head of the SGP police union, Yves Lefebvre, said that in one town, Tremblay-en-France, youth hurled Molotov cocktails at police, as well as heavy metal balls used in the popular game "petanque."
"Setting a wheelchair van on fire is a disgrace. This has to stop," he said.
President Francois Hollande visited the alleged victim, identified only by his first name, Theo, on Tuesday at the suburban hospital where he has been treated since the assault. The young man called for calm from his hospital bed, as did France's prime minister.
Authorities are wary of unrest in France's poor towns, remembering the fiery 2005 riots that spread through France -- beginning in the Paris suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois, near Aulnay, and hopscotching through social housing around the country.
The previous night police fired warning shots with live bullets to push back protesters in the unrest. Lefebrve said it was because they had neither rubber bullets nor tear gas, and were trapped between two gangs.
Raymonde Moreau, an 87-year-old resident of Aulnay-Sous-Bois, expressed concern about where the unrest might lead.
"There were times when (the area) was troubled, but it calmed down. So now, I don't know. Here we go again," she said.
