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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

http://plus.lefigaro.fr/note/who-are...0110318-425702


Who are the 480 street gangs of France?

Mots clés :

• France,
• French gangs,
• Gangs

18/03/2011 | Mise à jour: 13:00 Réaction (1)
Sélectionné par la rédaction
Par Michael Cosgrove (Membre Mon Figaro) pour le cercle :

• Le Figaro in English

French police in the Parisian subway - Credits: Frog and Onion



Many of the rapidly increasing number of street gangs in France defend their territory aggressively and are known to attack people for no real motive. Mostly composed of 15 to 20 youths, they are now being targeted by the Interior Ministry and the police.
They may not be comparable to the gangs of New York’s Bronx or those of Los Angeles – who were still responsible for well over half of all homicides in L.A. in 2006 – but they have doubled in number since 2008 and are to be found all over the country says a report by France’s public security department (DCSP.)
They are often led by a handful of hard-core members and they do not wear any identity-related signs or insignia. Although they habitually protect their housing estate, or even just one apartment block, they sometimes congregate around local schools or in shopping malls.
Authorities estimate the total number of gang members to be around 10,000 if hangers-on and short-lived gangs formed as a result of an incident or police patrols are included.
1096 arrests including 438 minors
Gang members can be as young as fourteen and 75% of their activities consist of drug dealing and petty theft. There are very few girls – just 2.5% - and they roam aimlessly around the streets, where trouble can erupt following a chance meeting and for very little reason.
A police officer deplores that “Something as insignificant as the theft of a baseball cap or a disagreement over a girl can be enough to see them pulling out their knives.” Last year saw 1096 gang members being arrested, 438 of whom were minors, and many of them have problems explaining what led them to offend.
Looking at someone ‘the wrong way’
This year has already seen several cases of serious violence, one of which recently involved an individual being stabbed nine times in an elevator for no other reason that he had looked at someone ‘the wrong way.’ Violence is not just confined to big cities, and in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, a small town, two rival gangs confronted each other in a knife fight at the end of January. One person was killed and two injured. Another incident involving someone looking at someone in a way which wasn’t appreciated before insults were traded led to the stabbing death of a young man in the small town of Millau.
The screw is now being tightened in Paris, where 154 gang members were arrested in February alone, and around 30 specialized police officers are keeping close tabs on 78 gangs in particular. Gangs sometimes leave their suburban territories to meet for fights in downtown Paris, which means that they get a lot of media coverage.

One major current threat in Paris is being posed by Tamil gangs, and close surveillance is being operated on some of them, such as the Red Boys, the Viluthus and the Sathanai. These gangs - who often drink heavily – have become extremely violent. A recent case involved the killing of a 26-year-old Sri-Lankan man who was found after a gang fight with his head and face split almost in two. His hands had been cut off with either an axe or a saber.

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