The French media, who are clearly more independent than their British counterparts, have started complaining bitterly about the French government’s orders not to release statistics about the recent wave of immigrant-origin crime in that country.

In an astonishing move, the French Interior Ministry has issued orders to the prefects not to communicate to the media any crime statistics for the nights of July13-15, despite specific requests from many of France’s major media outlets.

The national paper Le Monde explained in an article last week that “Only the figures for the night of July 13-14 were published: ‘Some 500 vehicles’ were burned, the worst ever recorded for the eve of the national holiday. Despite repeated requests to the Interior Ministry, and the DGPN, no figures were forthcoming for the night of July 14-15. These orders have been strictly applied. The different prefectures contacted by Le Monde refused to respond, citing ‘ministerial instructions’. Regional news media reported the same problem. The daily La Provence issued an unofficial report that was much less favourable than 2008: ‘41 cars and a day-care centre in Marseilles were burned’.”

Le Monde illustrated their article with a black and white cartoon (alongside) showing Marianne, the woman symbolising the French Republic, watching the “official” weather report. “More sun tomorrow” it says, as it pours outside.

According to the Brussels Journal website, other local papers have described similar problems. In Reims, the daily L’Union denounced the attitude of the authorities this way: “Yesterday morning, every journalist who came, even for the smallest piece of news, to the firemen, or gendarmes or police, heard the same answer: ‘No fires’. In fact, the truth is quite different. Some of those we questioned admitted under their breath: ‘We cannot say anything about the fires. We have received orders’.”

In Lyons, the daily Le Progrès reports the same blackout: “Orders not to speak on the radio were given to firemen, gendarmes and police.”

In previous years the radio network Europe 1 called the prefectures to verify the official counts. On 1 January 2008, the DGPN reported 372 burnt cars for New Year’s Eve as opposed to the 746 reported by Europe 1. Finally the ministry of the interior admitted that there had been 878 fires. The new “instructions” given to the prefectures will now prevent this sort of verification, according to the Brussels Journal.

“Some bits of news have leaked through,” the Brussels Journal continued. An article at the conservative blog François Desouche (based on a report in the newspaper Le Parisien) describes how firecrackers were used against the police in Tremblay-en-France, located in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis. This was the second time in as many weeks that police were attacked by ‘youths’ masked and armed with homemade incendiary devices constructed out of gunpowder collected from firecrackers.

Using the daily La Provence as its source, another article at François Desouche relates the violence in Marseilles on the night of 14 July. According to that paper, helicopters carrying water had to be employed to fight a huge arson attack which ravaged a five hectares area next to a housing estate. A day-care centre was partially damaged in the blaze and one ‘youth’ was arrested as he fired rockets at the firemen who had come to put out the blaze.

In addition, fires were set in cars and rubbish bins with Molotov cocktails, according to the newspaper, which also reported that the local police were subjected to an ambush in which firearms were used to shoot at officers. One policeman was slightly injured and one ‘youth’ of immigrant origin was arrested for being in possession of a 22-caliber rifle.

* In 2005, French President Nicholas Sarkozy called for “affirmative action” to tackle higher than average unemployment among Africans and Arabs in France. He has also in the past called on French people to marry more immigrants to try and defuse the ever growing racial riots in that country.