May 30 (Bloomberg) -- About 100 youths battled with the police last night on the outskirts of Paris, injuring nine law enforcement officers, six months after one of the worst riots swept through France's impoverished suburbs.

Violence erupted in the northern suburbs of Clichy-sous- Bois and Montfermeil yesterday after three men suspected of a robbery were arrested, a spokeswoman for the national police said. Seven cars were torched in Clichy and windows of Montfermeil's city hall were pelted with stones. Several trash cans were set on fire and the young men used baseball bats to attack the police, she said. About 300 law enforcement officers were deployed to control the rioters.

``With just one spark, it all could go afire again,'' Noel Mamere, a member of the Greens Party said on LCI television. ``The November fires have not been completely put out.''

In November, more than 10,000 cars and 200 buildings were torched or damaged across France in neighborhoods with large immigrant communities and youth unemployment of more than 30 percent. The riots lasted for more than three weeks, making them the longest stretch of urban unrest in France since the student uprising in 1968.

Clashes last night between masked youths and the police erupted in Montfermeil at around 10:30 p.m., in the neighborhood of Les Bosquets, where the three robbers were arrested, the police said. The violence then moved to the neighboring town of Clichy-sous-Bois, where it ended at about 2:30 a.m.

Police arrested three rioters during the night's skirmishes. Anti-riot squads have been posted in the two towns to prevent further violence, the police said, declining to give more details.

Taking Measures

Yesterday's riots may also have been prompted by the arrest of a man who assaulted a bus driver two weeks before, LCI television channel reported on its Web site.

An undetermined number of young people threw stones last night at the house of Xavier Lemoine, the mayor of Montfermeil. Lemoine, who witnessed the assault of a bus driver and reported the incident to the police, had imposed a ban on gatherings of youngsters on April 7, which was lifted on May 6.

``Measures taken by the state since last November are maybe starting to cause some problems for the delinquents in those neighborhoods,'' Lemoine said in a telephone interview. ``We will not let down. We will be cautious but firm in our actions against those harming the local population.''.

Lemoine said the life of his family was threatened after last night's violence.

In Central Paris

Tensions have also touched the center of Paris recently. Over the weekend, about 20 young black men scared off pedestrians in the Marais, the city's historic Jewish area. The group of men, claiming to be part of a black radical group called Tribu Ka, which says it follows Louis Farrakhan's Islamic black-nation ideology, rushed into a street named Rosiers and screamed anti-Semitic slogans before leaving without violence.

In a letter to the Justice Ministry, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy asked judicial authorities to order the shut down of the Tribu Ka's Web site, saying the group ``incites violence and hatred.''

Last year's wave of unrest began in Clichy after the accidental death by electrocution of two teenagers who were fleeing a police check. The rioting in suburbs housing immigrants and their descendants prompted the government to invoke a state-of-emergency law for the first time in 50 years, allowing local authorities to impose curfews.

To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at Hfouquet1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 30, 2006 06:35 EDT