21 police officers injured at France's assaults

amplify image

Serious damage was caused in the street violence. Photo:EITB

Twenty-one police officers were injured when rampaging youths assaulted a police station, set fire to cars and vandalized stores and a McDonald's restaurant in clashes in this rundown Paris suburb.

The violence Sunday night, prompted when two teens were killed in a motorbike crash with a police patrol car, was a reminder of unresolved tensions that drove nationwide riots in 2005 in immigrant-heavy housing projects.

Questions swirled Monday around the circumstances of the crash in Villiers-le-Bel, a town of public housing blocks home to a melange of Arab, black and white residents just a few kilometers (miles) north of the French capital.

Eight people were arrested and 21 police officers were injured, including the town's police chief, beaten in the face after he tried to negotiate with the rioters, a police official said.