French jail boss quits

PARIS: The head of a French jail where an al Qaeda inmate wounded three guards in a scissors attack resigned on Monday as security staff at several prisons protested, saying they no longer have the staff or clout to contain ultra-dangerous convicts.

Riot police broke up a picket at the notoriously overcrowded Fresnes jail on the outskirts of Paris, the country´s second-biggest, and guards staged similar protests at prisons in the north and south of France.

The CGT labour union said half of 188 French jails were affected by the protests. The director of another prison in the Calais region resigned four days after guards there were injured by a scissors-wielding inmate convicted over an al Qaeda attack that killed 21 people at a synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba in 2000.The inmate, Christian Ganczarski, is a convert to Islam and a German national of Polish origin who is serving an 18-year sentence for his role in the Djerba attack.