PARIS, Nov. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Tuesday in an interview with the US television network CNN that he preferred to use "severe social troubles" rather than "riots" to describe the recent urban violence in France.

    "I'm not sure you can call them riots. It's very different from the situation you have known in 1992 in Los Angeles for example," Villepin said in English, referring to the LA riots, which left 54dead and some 2,000 wounded.

    "In France during the two-week period of unrest, nobody died. So I think you can't compare this social unrest with any kind of riots," he said.

    Even though more than 9,000 cars were burned, 130 policemen were injured, some 100 public buildings damaged during the violence, "there were no guns in the streets", the Prime Minister noted, adding "no adults; mostly young people between 12 and 20 ...so it's a very special movement."

    As to causes of the violence, Villepin said there was a "feeling of discrimination" among many young people of immigrant background, as well as a certain loss of identity.

    These Young people "don't want to be recognized as Muslims, or as blacks, or as people coming from north Africa. They want to be recognized as French and they want to have equal opportunity during their lives," Villepin told the CNN.

    He acknowledged that successive governments had done too little for the poor suburbs in recent decades and said it was "important to understand the real nature of these movements."

    "There is no ethnic or religious basis to this movement, as we see in other parts of the world," he insisted.

    He said he was opposed to the positive discrimination to take note of race and religion and he would present Thursday at the monthly news conference a global program aiming at equal chances and a better education system in high-immigrant areas. Enditem