1,193 Cars Torched In France On New Year's Eve

A total of 1,193 cars were torched in France on New Year's Eve, the French Interior Minister said Tuesday.

1,193 Cars Torched On New Year's Eve In France

It was the first time in three years that such figures have been released. The last official figure was 1,147 in 2009.

"Because a problem is hidden, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist," said Manuel Valls, the head of France's Interior Ministry. "We have to have transparency. I don’t want the count of burnt cars stopping at 6:00 am, as it often did in the past to reduce the total. The French have the right to know the reality."

Publication of the number of torched cars was halted in the past few years in order to reduce the crime.

"We know that neighborhoods compete," Bruno Beschizza, a security chief for former President Nicolas Sarkozy, told iTele TV. Gang rivalries center on who can torch the most cars, with claims made on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, he said.

In recent years, setting vehicles ablaze during the arrival of the New Year has become quite a tradition in French suburbs as an "expression for disenfranchised suburban youths wanting to make sure the rest of the country doesn't forget they exist," Time.com reported.

On this New Year eve, 65,000 police and other emergency workers were mobilized across the country to secure safety in roads, including in the popular Eiffel Tower where hundreds of thousands of people gathered for the New Year countdown.

Valls said the Paris suburban region of Seine-Saint-Denis, where the 2005 unrest started, led the nation for torched cars, followed by two eastern regions around Strasbourg.