Dozens of youths clashed with police and set fire to buildings in a Paris suburb on the day before after two teenagers were killed in a crash with a police car.

The pair were riding on a stolen motorcycle when the accident happened in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, a police union source said.

France?s worst urban unrest in 40 years broke out in the northeastern Paris suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois in November 2005, after two teenagers died electrocuted in an electricity sub-station after apparently fleeing police.The circumstances in this case, however, were different.

?It was not a chase but apparently a traffic accident?, a police source said.The town?s police station caught fire and that of the neighboring town, Arnouville-les-Gonesse, was ransacked, the local authority said.

A Villiers garage was set ablaze and fires were put out before they could spread in a neighbouring garage and a petrol station in the same town. Large numbers of police were sent to the town from neighbouring departments and Paris. ?We made (police) immediately available for a dramatic situation in which two young people died and there has been damage and thefts,? a local authority official said.?There are small groups of vandals who have started to loot shops,? the official said, adding that a young person had been arrested.

The local authority said seven policemen and a fireman were injured. A police officer who went to the scene was attacked by youths who had gathered there. Several rubbish bins were torched and the burned out wreckage of a car was visible on French television footage.