Migrant polygamy 'helped cause riots'
By Colin Randall in Paris
(Filed: 17/11/2005)

Senior French politicians provoked an angry reaction in their country's riot-hit suburbs yesterday after claiming that polygamy among African immigrants had contributed to the outbreak of violence.
        
Protesters in France
Citizens of France protest after a weekend of violence

Gérard Larcher, the employment minister, said it was inevitable that the children of large, polygamous families had trouble finding work. He added: "Since part of society displays this anti-social behaviour, it is not surprising that some of them have difficulty finding work."

Mr Larcher is to play an important role in President Jacques Chirac's promised offensive on unemployment and discrimination suffered on the poor estates.

Rachid Nekkaz, of the Respect for the Suburbs Collective, condemned the comments: "The primary cause of the problems, including the lack of parental control, is unemployment. Everything else is political distraction."

Mr Larcher was supported by Bernard Accoyer, the parliamentary leader of the ruling, centre-Right UMP party, who said some young people behaved badly because of the absence of a father figure.

Mr Accoyer said the authorities were "strangely lax" in their approach to the estimated total of 30,000 families, mainly from West Africa, in which the husband had more than one wife.