Things must be really awful in France, if even al-Reuters is calling it a “guerilla war:” French police the target in urban guerrilla war. (Hat tip: Bill Amos.)

PARIS (Reuters) - Stoned, beaten and insulted, their vehicles torched by crowds of hostile youths, French police say they face an urban guerrilla war when they enter the run-down neighborhoods that ring the major cities.

“Our role is to guarantee the safety of people and property but the great difficulty today is that police are having problems ensuring their own safety,” said Jerome Hanarte of the Alliance-Police Nationale union.

Bedside television interviews with officers hospitalized after beatings in “les banlieues,” or suburbs, support statistics showing a 6.7 percent jump in violent crime in the 12 months to August. Fourteen officers are hurt every day in the line of duty, unions estimate, and law and order is sure to feature prominently in next year’s presidential election.

The head of the French crime statistics body told Reuters the rise in attacks on police was partly due to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2002 decision to order police back into tough areas, to disrupt the black economy that fuels crime.

Some residents complain the move spawned constant police harassment which has only exacerbated tensions with local youths, many of whom come from ethnic minorities.

“You can see discrimination in ID controls,” complained Kader Latreche, 36, an Algerian with his own photo equipment repair shop in the La Courneuve suburb. “Why is it always people from the Maghreb or black people who are being stopped and checked? If it happens over and over again, it gets to you. People are frustrated, that’s obvious.”

UPDATE at 11/28/06 8:45:50 am:

There are 751 areas in France that are not controlled by the French: The 751 No-Go Zones of France.

Is that bad?