CNN.com - Beaujolais revelry turns violent - Nov 18, 2005
Beaujolais revelry turns violent
The Grenoble disturbances were the latest in three weeks of violence.
LYON, France (Reuters) -- Festivities marking the arrival of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau turned violent in the southeastern French city of Grenoble on Friday, when more than 30 people were injured in clashes between students and police.
The overnight disturbance was an isolated incident in a country that had largely returned to normal after almost three weeks of rioting by youths angry over unemployment and discrimination in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities.
Friday's violence broke out after between 2,000 and 3,000 people, mostly students, left bars where they had been celebrating the arrival of the popular French wine, which traditionally goes on sale on the third Thursday of November.
Youths attacked firemen called out to attend an injured person and began to throw missiles at police who arrived to back up the firemen. Wine bottles were thrown from apartment windows.
"Some of them were very politicized. Drunk on new wine, they wanted to make a revolution, a 'red Beaujolais' revolution," Commissioner Jean-Claude Borel Garin, the local police chief, told Reuters.
Beaujolais revelry turns violent
The Grenoble disturbances were the latest in three weeks of violence.
LYON, France (Reuters) -- Festivities marking the arrival of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau turned violent in the southeastern French city of Grenoble on Friday, when more than 30 people were injured in clashes between students and police.
The overnight disturbance was an isolated incident in a country that had largely returned to normal after almost three weeks of rioting by youths angry over unemployment and discrimination in the suburbs of Paris and other French cities.
Friday's violence broke out after between 2,000 and 3,000 people, mostly students, left bars where they had been celebrating the arrival of the popular French wine, which traditionally goes on sale on the third Thursday of November.
Youths attacked firemen called out to attend an injured person and began to throw missiles at police who arrived to back up the firemen. Wine bottles were thrown from apartment windows.
"Some of them were very politicized. Drunk on new wine, they wanted to make a revolution, a 'red Beaujolais' revolution," Commissioner Jean-Claude Borel Garin, the local police chief, told Reuters.
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