There was more rioting in Paris yesterday.

Officials said that "small, very mobile gangs" were harassing police and setting fires to garbage cans and vehicles throughout the region.

France-Info radio said some 150 blazes were reported in garbage bins, cars and buildings across Seine-Saint-Denis. The unrest highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor satellites.

Tension had mounted throughout Tuesday after young men torched cars, garbage bins and even a primary school 24 hours earlier. Scores of cars were reported burned Monday night in Clichy-sous-Bois and 13 people were jailed.

Youths set two rooms of a primary school in Sevran on fire Monday along with several cars, Mayor Stephane Gatignon said in a statement.

Unrest was triggered by the deaths of two teenagers electrocuted in a power substation where they hid to escape police. A third was injured. Officials have said police were not pursuing the boys, aged 15 and 17.

He isn't getting much support from the Equal Opportunities Minister who thinks that this is not a crime problem but a social problem.

But equal opportunities minister Azouz Begag said a stronger police presence was not the way to tackle the violence.

"It is by fighting the discriminations of which young people are victims that we will re-establish order, the order of equality. Not by bringing out more CRS (riot police)," Begag told the newspaper Liberation in an interview.

Why does it have to be an "either/or" situation? Can't they work on economic opportunities for the poor and crack down on rioting at the same time? And does the Equal Opportunities Minister have a clue about how France's restrictive economic policies are harming those at the bottom and adding to unemployment in his country?