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Fear of Y2K Violence Shuts Paris Restaurants

PARIS (Reuters) - Some luxury Paris restaurants plan to stay closed on New Year's Eve out of fear of becoming targets for violent youth gangs mingling with revelers in the city center.

A spokeswoman for the celebrated Fouquets on the Champs Elysees told Reuters it would be closed all day to avoid a repeat of incidents at the end of the 1998 World Cup soccer tournament when the restaurant was turned into an improvised infirmary.

One person was killed and dozens injured when a car drove at high speed through part of a million-strong crowd on the Champs Elysees celebrating France's win over Brazil.

On December 31 one and a half million people are expected to pack the famous avenue to see in the new millennium.

``What we fear is that gangs of youthful troublemakers will descend on the Champs Elysees and start breaking everything. Most of the high class restaurants will close like us,'' she said.

The newspaper Le Figaro listed several other luxury establishments including Chez Laurent and the Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower which would also close.

It said the giant McDonald's fast food outlet on the avenue would close for the same reasons and that several restaurants had decided to wall off their premises from the street for the period.

Police have promised to deploy thousands of riot troops to avoid the type of breakdown of law and order which has marked several mass gatherings in Paris in the past two years.

Several pop concerts or student rallies in Paris this year were marked by violence and widespread looting by gangs of youths from poor immigrant suburbs taking advantage of the cover of crowds to avoid arrest by police

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), December 21, 1999

Answers

Shutting Paris restaurants......GOOD.....that is great news......nothing but overpriced crap anyway.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), December 22, 1999.