THE footballer Lilian Thuram, one of France’s biggest sporting heroes and a black who grew up in the troubled Paris estates, yesterday blamed the rioting on social injustice, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister.

Thuram’s attack, echoed by other emblematic figures from the ethnic minorities, underlined the sense of grievance that persists, despite a slowdown in the epidemic of arson.

Only a handful of towns, and none in the nine départements of Paris, ordered curfews under a national emergency law that has come into force. Overnight arson attacks on Monday fell by 50 per cent and police said that they appeared to have brought unrest under control.

M Sarkozy kept up his tough line, ordering the immediate expulsion of 180 foreigners who had been convicted of taking part in the riots, whether they had legal residence papers or not.

Speaking from Martinique, in the French West Indies, before a match with Costa Rica last night, Thuram said that M Sarkozy had helped to spark the riots with his talk about the “scum” of the suburban estates and his now notorious pledge to “clean them out with a pressure hose”. “Do you think that it’s right, to speak like that? I took it personally. His words hurt,” said Thuram, 33, who moved to France from the French island of Guadeloupe at the age of 9. “Perhaps Sarkozy doesn’t know what he is talking about,” he added. “I grew up in an estate, too, but I am not scum. People used to say the same thing to me. What I wanted was to find work.”

The words of the centre-back, who plays for Juventus in Italy, were wounding for the Government of President Chirac as it strives to convince the disaffected youth of the estates that it has understood their plight. Thuram, a member of the Higher Council for Integration, is widely respected in France. He was a star player in the so-called France Black-White-Arab team that won the World Cup in 1998, a victory that was hailed as a symbol of a new racially peaceful France.

The footballer, who grew up on estates in the towns of the southern Paris outskirts, added: “Violence never happens for no reason. You have to understand where the malaise comes from. Before talking about law and order, you have to talk about social justice.”

Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister, announced measures this week to curb discrimination and help the young of the mainly Arab and black estates to stay in education and enter the workforce.

Scepticism remained high among minority activists because successive governments have undertaken such programmes since violence first broke out on the estates in the early 1980s. A national opinion poll yesterday showed that the measures to help the minorities enjoy overwhelming public support. The survey, for Le Parisien newspaper, also showed that 73 per cent of French people approved the revival yesterday of a 1955 law authorising curfews. Only 13 per cent said that they took an understanding view of the violence, which has included setting alight 6,600 vehicles and dozens of buildings. Eighty-six per cent of them deplored the unrest.

With very few from the minorities succeeding outside sport and entertainment, the views of Thuram and his fellow players carry weight. The footballer was joined yesterday by Florent Malouda and Eric Abidal, who play for Lyons, the French champions. “The rope was taut and now it has snapped,” Abidal said.

“Not everyone has had an opportunity to work, and it has been going on a long time,” Malouda said. “The victims are the people who themselves live in the estates — the neighbours of the hooligans.”

Thierry Henry and Zinedine Zidane, France’s senior footballing heroes, have both declined to comment on the troubles.

As violence appeared to be on the wane, Bertrand Delanoë, the Socialist Mayor of Paris, joined a chorus of criticism of the emergency law from left-wing figures and minority campaigners. The Government had overreacted and no curfew was necessary in Paris, he said. The curfew is mainly being applied in the southeast Mediterranean region around Nice.

Incidents were reported over Tuesday night in 116 towns. Michel Gaudin, the national police chief, said that an extra 1,000 officers had been deployed overnight on Tuesday, bringing the total to 11,500.

Police fired tear gas to disperse youths throwing petrol bombs in Toulouse and rioters incinerated an unoccupied bus in Bassens, near Bordeaux.

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