Sales of petrol and other combustibles will be limited on New Year's Eve in a bid to curb what has become an annual tradition of revellers torching hundreds of cars, police said.

"/> Sales of petrol and other combustibles will be limited on New Year's Eve in a bid to curb what has become an annual tradition of revellers torching hundreds of cars, police said.

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CRIME

Petrol sales limited to cut New Year car torchings

Sales of petrol and other combustibles will be limited on New Year's Eve in a bid to curb what has become an annual tradition of revellers torching hundreds of cars, police said.

Petrol sales limited to cut New Year car torchings
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Youths in the often depressed suburbs of French cities have been torching hundreds of vehicles on New Year’s Eve since the early 1990s in what police say has become a competition to see which area can cause the most damage.

Police last year said they would no longer release figures for the number of vehicles set on fire to put an end to the “competition and ranking” that had emerged, with more than 1,000 vehicles being torched every year.

In a police circular seen by AFP, Interior Minister Claude Gueant urged security forces to “mobilise with the greatest vigilance” for the New Year’s Eve celebrations on Saturday.

Instructions sent with the circular said local security forces should take all measures necessary including “restricting retail sales of petrol.”

In Paris, where tens of thousands are expected to gather for the annual celebration on the Champs Elysées, police have banned the sale of “domestic combustibles” such as lighter fuel from Wednesday to Monday.

Alcohol sales have also been banned around the Champs Elysées on New Year’s Eve.

Paris police noted in a statement on Thursday that as in other recent years fireworks will be banned on the Champs Elysées and no official display will take place.

“There will not be a fireworks display in the capital on the night of December 31st,” the statement said.

“The sale and use of all fireworks are strictly forbidden during the year-end holiday season because they are liable to seriously disrupt public order and security.”

It noted that the sale of fireworks during that period was punishable by a fine of up to 1,500 euros ($1,940) and their use by a fine of 38 euros.

Tens of thousands of police are expected to take to the streets of France to ensure security on Saturday.

During last year’s celebrations, nearly 54,000 security officers, including police and gendarmes, were deployed, including more than 8,000 in Paris.

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CRIME

Detectives return to French village to solve missing toddler mystery

Investigators cordoned off a tiny village in the French Alps on Thursday to solve the mystery of a missing toddler whose disappearance last summer gripped the nation.

Detectives return to French village to solve missing toddler mystery

Emile, two-and-a-half, was staying with his grandparents for the first day of the summer holidays when he disappeared on July 8th last year.

Two neighbours last saw him in the late afternoon walking alone on a street in Haut-Vernet, a small settlement of 25 inhabitants at an altitude of around 1,200 metres.

The little boy, barely 90 cm (35 inches) tall, was wearing a yellow T-shirt, white shorts and tiny hiking shoes, according to a call for witnesses at the time.

A massive on-the-ground search involving dozens of police and soldiers, sniffer dogs, a helicopter and drones failed to find him in July.

It was called off after several days following a prosecutor saying it was unlikely such a young child would have survived in the summer heat.

An initial probe into a missing person soon became a criminal investigation into a possible abduction. But the options of an accident or a fall remain open.

French investigators have summoned 17 people, including family members, neighbours and witnesses, to re-enact the events of the day he disappeared.

They are to focus on the last few minutes during which Emile was seen by neighbours, trying to untangle their contradictory accounts.

The family’s “only hope is that the child is still alive, even if this hope fades from day to day,” the grandfather’s lawyer said.

To ensure no outside interference in the investigation, police cordoned off the village from the outside world on Wednesday morning. It will remain so until Friday morning.

Flights over the village are also forbidden.

Early on Wednesday morning, around 15 journalists huddled in the cold rain at the barrier cutting off access to the village, kept at bay by two police cars.

Some 20 investigators are to guide the re-enactment of events, with some flying drones above to film it all.

The boy’s grandfather was questioned in a 1990s case into alleged violence and sexual aggression at a private Catholic school, it has emerged.

But a source close to the case said his possible involvement in the disappearance had always been examined to “the same degree” as other hypotheses.

Emile had just arrived in Haut-Vernet to stay with his mother’s parents in their holiday home for the summer when he went missing.

His parents, devout Catholics living in the southern town of La Bouilladisse, were not present on that day.

His mother is the oldest of 10 children.

Emile was her first child and she also has a younger daughter.

Investigators received some 900 calls from members of the public in the case, all of which have been dismissed as unrelated.

They have also sifted through endless mobile data and call logs in the hope of finding a clue.

In late November, a day before Emile would have turned three, his parents published a call for answers in a Christian weekly.

“Tell us where he is,” they wrote.

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