PARIS - French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said today the government will maintain the state of emergency declared during recent riots and that it remained "very vigilant" with the approach of year-end celebrations, which usually are marked by car burnings in some cities.
The state of emergency, decreed November 9 to end the country’s worst civil unrest in four decades, has been extended until February, although it is no longer being applied anywhere.
It gives local officials special powers, such as imposing curfews and conducting searches.
Sarkozy told French radio France-Inter that the state of emergency would remain in place "for a relatively simple reason: we will be very vigilant regarding the year-end celebrations."
"Honest people must be able to celebrate without being poisoned by a minority that want to terrorize through gang law, the law of the strongest and the law of violence," he added.
Long before youths rioted across France in late October and November, teenagers in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of large cities such as Strasbourg, in the east of France, began the custom of celebrating New Year’s Eve by torching hundreds of cars.