1,000 French police raid Paris suburb

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VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France (Reuters) - French police launched raids in a Parisian suburb early on Monday, arresting 33 people they suspected of being involved in violent clashes that broke out in the area in November, a police source said.

About 1,000 police officers were involved in the operation, which began at about 6 a.m. (5 a.m. British time) in Villiers-le-Bel, to the north of Paris, and neighbouring suburbs.

"The operation has gone well so far," prosecutor Marie-Therese de Givry told reporters.

About 60 police officers were injured in November’s clashes, which followed the death of two boys in a motorcycle accident with a police car in Villiers-le-Bel.

A library, several public buildings and dozens of cars were burned during the unrest, which reawakened memories of the riots in poor French suburbs in 2005 when youths torched thousands of cars during weeks of clashes with police.

Residents of the multi-ethnic run-down housing estates in the Paris suburbs have cited high unemployment, poverty, police victimisation, and poor housing as factors which contributed to simmering tensions and the outbreak of violence.

However, President Nicolas Sarkozy said in November the violence in Villiers-le-Bel was the work of a "thugocracy" of criminals and not the result of social deprivation.

A junior minister, Andre Santini, .....continued below

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"A commissioner was beaten up, police were fired on, the government can’t let that pass," Santini told France 2 television on Monday after the raids had been launched.

"I think it is normal for the government to show that there are no lawless zones."

Opposition politicians took issue with the heavy media presence that accompanied the operation.

"When cameras accompany massive police operations in the run up to municipal elections, I think it is a way of influencing opinion, of wanting to make people afraid," Segolene Royal, who was the Socialists’ candidate in the May 2007 presidential elections, told France Inter radio.

(Reporting by Thierry Leveque, writing by Swaha Pattanaik, editing by Alison Williams)