them by a 346–148 majority, and the Senate by 202–125. Senior officials from President Jacques Chirac's centre-right party have suggested that polygamy is one factor in the riots, arguing children of polygamous families have less of a father figure and are more likely to live in overcrowded conditions. "Polygamy... prevents people being educated as they should be in an organised society. Tens of people cannot live in a single flat", Bernard Accoyer, leader of the Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) in the National Assembly lower house of parliament, told French radio. Polygamy is illegal in France but until 1993, it was possible for immigrants to bring more than one wife from their home country to join them. (Note: Islam allows a man to have up to four wives at a time.) Fourth week Thursday 17 November Day French police say levels of violence in France have returned to "normal", following three weeks of unrest by urban youths across the country. Police said 98 vehicles were torched on Wednesday night, marking a "return to a normal situation everywhere in France". The police service said the figure of 98 cars burnt was in line with the nightly average before the trouble began on 27 October. Authorities in the Rhone region, which covers Lyon and nearby south-eastern towns, lifted a curfew on minors after just eight cars were destroyed overnight. French Muslim leaders denounced on Thursday efforts to blame Muslims and Islam for recent riots in the country's rundown suburbs and said they saw worrying signs of growing prejudice against their faith here. Many young rioters may have been from Muslim backgrounds, but their violent outburst was a protest against unemployment, poor housing and other bias they faced because of their foreign origins, they told journalists. "They didn't act like that because they're Muslims, but because of the misery they're living in", said Kamel Kabtane, rector of the Grand Mosque of Lyon in eastern France. "There weren't just Mohammads and Alis in those groups (of rioters) – there were Tonys and Daniels too", said Dalil Boubakeur, the Paris Grand Mosque rector who is also head of France's official Muslim Council (CFCM). Friday 18 November Day French Equal Opportunities Minister Azouz Begag has urged the government to overturn a ban on collecting data based on ethnicity or religion. Government bodies and private companies are barred from gathering such data – which is deemed