Man Arrested in France for Insulting President Sarkozy

French police arrested a young man for insulting President Nicolas Sarkozy as the leader visited a deprived Paris suburb, a court official said Friday.

The 21-year-old was arrested at a train station in Seine-Saint-Denis, near the northern Paris suburb of La Courneuve, where Sarkozy made an unannounced visit late Wednesday evening.

The official said the suspect was hurt and bruised during his arrest, and a doctor signed him off work for nine days. He was to set appear before a judge Friday afternoon.

However, the official did not specify the insult allegedly made to Sarkozy, who saw unfriendly receptions on several previous visits to certain suburbs.

It was in La Courneuve that Sarkozy sparked an outcry in June 2005 when, as interior minister, he visited a housing estate in the wake of a fatal shooting and said he would "clean it out with a power hose."

Four months later, suburbs around Paris and other French cities exploded in violent riots that were sparked by the death of two youths fleeing from police.

The violence was blamed partly on bad relations between authorities and locals in such suburbs, which were home to large immigrant populations and suffered from high unemployment.

An aide to Sarkozy said the president talked with people Wednesday in a section of the estate that was due to be demolished, but several residents told AFP they saw nothing but police and cars coming and going.

A local councilor for the neighborhood, Stephane Troussel, said in a statement that the visit was an "admission of failure" for Sarkozy's security policies.

He said Sarkozy, "is obliged to come in the middle of the night, secretly, because in La Courneuve as in Seine-Saint-Denis his record on public security and action in working class areas is not great."