ESR CLOSE UP

PARIS (EmergencyNet News) - Law enforcement officials in France are said to be determined to bring under control the violence that has plagued much of the World Cup soccer games this past month. A big test for French authorities will come on Friday night when English and German hooligans threaten to lay waste the northern industrial city of Lens.

French officials direct security for the tournament from a "war room." Amid a maze of TV monitors and computers, police from the 31 other nations competing in the Cup also worked to isolate potential troublemakers on French streets.

The new police tactic is: Intervene massively at the first sign of trouble.

Last Friday night turned out to be relatively calm. Apart from beer can barrages and subsequent police baton charges, Lens survived the England- Colombia match unscathed.

Rene-Georges Querry is head of World Cup security. He attributed the minimal violence to 2,000 police, an alcohol ban, no outdoor viewing screens for ticketless fans, and strict border checks that turned away hundreds of suspected hooligans.

Still, officials were worried about high-risk matches like England vs. Argentina in Saint-Etienne on Tuesday. Things haven't gone very smoothly in this World Cup: In the two worst incidents, English fans battled local French North Africans for three days in Marseille, and German neo-Nazis clashed with police in Lens.

So far, the French Interior Ministry has counted at least 3,200 injuries in tournament violence. About 400 people have been hospitalized, including a policeman still in a coma who was beaten by the neo-Nazis.

French Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement has admitted police were surprised by the chaos in several French cities after the Cup started on 10 June. The ministry said police arrested more than 700 people, expelled more than a dozen from the country, and turned away more than 500 others at the border. They have also barred about 1,200 Iranians from around Europe from entering France to attend the U.S.-Iran match in Lyon.

Before and during England's 15 June match with Tunisia in Marseille, English fans clashed with local youths. Outdoor screens for ticketless fans turned out to be a flash point. Officials said that most of the damage in Marseille was caused by local youths, not from the English fans.

A French police union leader said the violence, though partly caused by drunken or malicious visitors, also reflects rising crime in poor neighborhoods. Marseille newspapers criticized police for not intervening earlier to stop the rampage. The police union leader argued the strategy was to encircle the violence, arrest offenders individually and "avoid a frontal assault that would have resulted in more injuries, even death."

But that tactic had to be changed when the violence threatened to get out of control. Now, police are under orders to step in immediately.

Officials say that the attack in which a French policeman was seriously injured was a random incident. He was apparently caught alone on a side street and hit in the head with an iron bar. But, incredibly, it was reported that the German hooligans used cell phones to coordinate their assaults.

French officials at the war room in central Paris say they get faster cooperation from English authorities than from the Germans in moving against hooligans because of German privacy laws.

In Argentina on Tuesday, three people lost their lives in a traffic accident, and more than 30 people were injured and 70 arrested as fans in Argentina rowdily celebrated the national soccer team's 4-3 World Cup win over England. The deaths occurred when a pickup truck carrying 11 fans was hit by a train at 1900 hours local time (2200 GMT) on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Eight other passengers were injured in the accident. Backed-up traffic milling around town amid the celebrations had stranded the pickup on the tracks in front of an oncoming passenger train.

At the obelisk in the heart of Buenos Aires 34 people, including 14 policemen, were injured, and 70 people were arrested as a rowdy crowd celebrated Argentina's win over England. As the close game ended, fans threw rocks and bottles at television crews, photographers and reporters, sending at least two news crew members to the hospital. The situation worsened when police on surrounding main streets used water trucks and police vans to offer protection against the more violent fans.