PARIS, October 31, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – French police clashed with angry immigrant youths in a Paris suburb for the fourth straight night Sunday, October 30, as accusations that teargas was thrown into a mosque are expected to exacerbate the situation further.

Eleven people were arrested after the violence in which eight cars and 16 rubbish bins were torched in the district of Clichy-sous-Bois in the northeastern Paris suburb of Saint Denis, departmental security spokesman Jean-Luc Sidot was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Six police officers were slightly injured after being hit by projectiles. There were no reports of any civilian casualties.

The unrest was triggered when two immigrant teenagers, aged 15 and 17, died by electrocution on Thursday after they scaled the wall of an electrical relay station.

The local public prosecutor said the boys thought they were being chased by police, but authorities denied that was the case.

Hundreds of the suburb's residents held a peaceful march Saturday, October 29, in memory of the teenagers, with groups of youths wearing tee-shirts marked "Dead for Nothing".

A lawyer representing the families of the victims, Jean-Pierre Mignard, asked: "Why did these young people, who had done nothing wrong, feel sufficiently threatened to enter a dangerous site, climb over a 2.5-meter (six foot) barbed-wire covered wall and hide inside a turbine?"

More serious clashes in the area on Thursday and Friday had pitted hundreds of youths against police, with 23 officers injured and 13 people taken into custody, as the burnt-out wrecks of dozens of cars lay smoldering on the streets.

A canister producing irritating smoke was hurled inside the mosque by an unknown source, according to the police and the local mayor's office.

Muslims inside accused French police of throwing teargas into the place of worship.

Sidot, the departmental security spokesman, said that was "probably not" the case but added an inquiry would be launched.

The local member of parliament, Eric Raoult, told RTL radio that it was not clear that the canister contained teargas and that it may have been a grenade with a pepper-based product.

He added that officers were finding the situation difficult and that there were "outlaws who want to keep areas outside the control of police."

The clashes came a week after France's interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, vowed to wage a "war without mercy" on crime in the suburbs of Paris.

Critics say Sarkozy's tough lien does not help cut crime in run-down suburbs, high-immigration areas facing chronic poverty, unemployment and a lack of prospects.

Years of government negligence and marginalization have turned many of these suburbs, especially Saint Denis, into a hotbed for crime, says IslamOnline.net’s correspondent.

A Sorbonne research released earlier in the year by the French Observatory Against Racism found that Arab names and dark complexion color represent an obstacle to jobseekers.

The "Discrimination at Workplace" research said that the organization sent 325 CVs of competitive applicants, who only differ in names and origin, to find that the opportunity for North African applicants to get a job is five times less than natives.

French authorities claim that Clichy-sous-Bois is a fertile ground for "radical Muslims" and gangs.

But mosque in Saint Denis, home to the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF), play a key role in easing tensions erupting every now and then between Muslim youths and police.

Better known among the French as “93,” Saint Denis has a Muslim population of 500,000 out of 1,200 million people, making it the largest Muslim residential area in the country.