BEIJING, Nov. 15 -- France's worst rioting since the 1960s seems to be nearing an end, the national police chief said Sunday as fewer cars were torched nationwide and Paris remained calm despite Internet and mobile phone messages urging violence in the streets of the capital.

    In scattered attacks, youths rammed a burning car into a center for retirees in Provence and pelted police with stones in the heart of Lyon, the country's third-biggest city. A firebomb was tossed at a Lyon mosque but did not explode.

    The nationwide storm of arson attacks, rioting and other violence, often by young people from impoverished minority communities, has lost steam since the government declared a state of emergency Wednesday.

    Youths set fire to 374 parked vehicles before dawn Sunday, compared to 502 the previous night, police said. A week ago, 1,400 cars were incinerated in a single night.

    If the downward trend continues, "things could return to normal very quickly," National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said, noting that French youths burn about 100 cars on an average Saturday night.

    The unrest continued for an 18th night Sunday. In Toulouse, rioters rammed a car into a primary school before setting the building ablaze, the regional government said.

    The rioting, sparked by the accidental electrocution deaths of two teenagers who thought police were chasing them, began in Paris' poor suburbs, where many immigrants from North and West Africa live with their French-born children in housing projects.

    France's worst unrest since the 1968 student-worker protests is forcing the country to confront anger that has built for decades over racial discrimination, crowded housing and unemployment. The national jobless rate is nearly 10 percent, but it is around 40 percent for youths in housing projects.

    More copycat attacks were registered in neighboring countries Sunday, with 29 vehicles torched in Belgium, four cars burned in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, and two cars burned in the Swiss town of Martigny.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)