A band of up to 30 youths forced passengers out of a bus in a southern Paris suburb in broad daylight Sunday, set it afire then stoned firefighters who came to the rescue, a police official said, according to AP. Police cordoned off the neighborhood in Grigny, in the Essonne region, following the bus attack, which came five days before France marks the one-year anniversary of the start of three weeks of fiery riots by poor suburban youths. District police chief Jean-Francois Papineau called Sunday's bus attack «deliberate.» He said the vehicle was forced to stop at a road block at about 2 p.m. Two youths then entered the back of the bus to clear out passengers before dousing it with gasoline and setting it ablaze. The blaze, which left the bus a tangled carcass of metal, spread to four parked cars, Papineau told LCI television. Meanwhile, France's minister for social cohesion, Jean-Louis Borloo, called on citizens to act responsibly because «tensions are raw just as we're in the process of resolving the difficulties.»
