Riot boosts Le Pen's poll ratings

Rioting French youths who hurled insults about presidential front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy may, ironically, help him win.

Polls yesterday suggested that the outburst of violence at a Paris train station this week boosted support for the conservative who cultivated a law-and-order image as interior minister - and for far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Tuesday's rampage propelled security and France's frustrated young minorities into the spotlight of this tight and unpredictable race, highlighting the social tensions the next president will inherit. Some said the violence could mark a turning point in the campaign, less than a month before the first round of voting April 22.

Many of the young people brawling at the Gare du Nord train station were Arab or black, like many of the youth who led riots across neglected suburban housing projects nationwide in 2005, releasing pent-up anger over discrimination, unemployment and economic inequality.

After this week's clashes, Sarkozy concentrated on voters' fears with crackdown-on-criminals rhetoric.

"A delinquent is a delinquent, a rapist is a rapist, whatever his age or the color of his skin," he said Thursday.

His chief rival, Socialist Segolene Royal, focused on frustration with Sarkozy's policing policies and France's failure to solve the troubles of its ghettoized youth.

An association representing low-income neighborhoods nationwide issued an appeal Thursday urging voters to back Royal. On Friday, she proposed that the government pay the salaries of unskilled high school graduates who are hired by small businesses for a year, in a bid to boost employment.

Le Pen, who has long blamed immigrants for the country's woes, said this week's violence "proved our analyses and predictions right." Le Pen shocked France and Europe by making it to second place in the 2002 elections.

The right's tactics may be working. One poll released Friday by CSA showed Le Pen gaining 2 points since the Tuesday incident, Sarkozy maintaining his lead - and Royal dropping.

Another, by OpinionWay, showed that voters have more faith in Sarkozy than in the other candidates to reduce violence.

Still, the figures revealed persistent voter insecurity: Only 39 percent predicted that violence would drop under a President Sarkozy, with the rest expecting a rise or no change.

Sarkozy won praise for handling the 2005 riots with no major bloodshed, and his popularity ratings rose 11 percent during the three-week spree of car torchings, according to one measure. But many French blame him for fueling the violence by calling youth troublemakers "scum."

Sporadic clashes with police have continued in the troubled suburbs, and Tuesday they reached the heart of Paris.

After a 32-year-old Congolese man without a Metro ticket punched two inspectors during a routine check, dozens gathered to defend him. The group swelled to 300, and youths wielding metal bars smashed windows and looted stores. Eight train agents and a police officer were injured.

Police arrested 13 people, including five minors. Two young men were convicted Thursday and sentenced to four months in prison, while another was sentenced Friday to six months behind bars. The man who sparked the riots is to remain in custody until his trial May 2.

Some of the youths shouted slogans against Sarkozy. But instead of rallying voters to their cause, the rioters frightened and alienated many, said security expert Sebastian Roche of the state-funded National Center for Scientific Research.

Tuesday's clashes haven't sparked more widespread violence - at least so far.

"You cannot exclude an explosion in the housing projects" in the coming weeks, especially if Sarkozy wins, said Kamel Chibli, who helped organize the youth appeal to vote for Royal.