French President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a massive raid on the Muslim housing projects in the suburbs of Paris.

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France - More than 1,000 police, some wearing black hoods, raided housing projects outside Paris in a massive sweep Monday, kicking open doors and detaining 33 people in a search for rioters who led an outburst of violence last year, a prosecutor said.
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Critics called the early morning operation, captured on television cameras, a “security spectacle” aimed at bolstering President Nicolas Sarkozy before municipal elections next month. Sarkozy recently vowed to better police the neglected neighborhoods, populated largely by families of immigrant background, that exploded in nationwide riots in 2005.

Riot police and other officers were mobilized for Monday’s raids in Villiers-le-Bel and in the neighboring towns of Sarcelles, Gonesse and Arnouville as part of the investigation into a flare-up of violence there in November, according to police.

Marie-Therese de Givry, prosecutor of Pontoise, said 33 people were arrested. House-to-house searches followed the raids for several hours, the prosecutor told reporters in Pontoise, seat of the Val d’Oise region where the targeted suburbs are located.

Most of those detained, aged 19 to 31, had been known to police, mainly for previous violence, according to police. Delinquents and drug traffickers may be among those arrested. The prosecutor said one suspect had the equivalent of $10,855 in his jacket pocket.