The riots began two weeks ago after the accidental deaths of two youths apparently fleeing police, but grew into protests by poor white youths and youngsters of North African and African origin against police treatment, racism and poor job prospects.

Speaking after talks with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Paris, Chirac said the government must do more to ensure all citizens received equal treatment.

``We will have to draw all the consequences of this crisis, once the time comes and order has been restored, and with a lot of courage and lucidity,'' Chirac, who has said little about the crisis in public, told a joint news conference with Zapatero.

``We need to respond in a strong and quick way to the unquestionable problems that many inhabitants of the deprived neighbourhoods surrounding our cities are facing,'' Chirac said.

Two weeks of unrest in poor suburbs around France have badly rattled the conservative government and prompted Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Tuesday to invoke a 50-year-old law allowing local restrictions.

Although the move coincided with a sharp fall in violence, Paris police chief Pierre Mutz banned the transport and purchase of petrol in jerry cans, citing a string of arrests in the capital of people carrying firebombs. Riots so far in the Paris area have been mainly confined to its impoverished suburbs.

``Calls have been launched over the past few days on Internet sites and by SMS messages urging meetings within Paris and calling for 'violent actions', in the words of the authors of these messages,'' Mutz's office said in a statement.

Mutz ordered all Paris petrol stations to enforce the ban.

VIOLENCE SUBSIDING

Despite the overall drop in violence, there were overnight clashes in the southwestern city of Toulouse, where a burning car was rammed into a primary school.

Police said 482 vehicles had been torched overnight, down from 617 the previous night, with 203 arrests reported.

``It's calm. It's subsiding,'' said a spokesman for the Seine-et-Marne department east of Paris.

Only five prefects, the state's top officials in France's administrative districts, have invoked the emergency powers, imposing limited curfews in places ranging from Nice in the south to Amiens in the north.

A poll showed that 73 percent of French people welcomed the measures, which are available to authorities in 38 cities and suburban areas including Paris.

However, some critics say Villepin overreacted by reviving a measure dating from Algeria's war of independence against its colonial master France.

``Most elected officials on the ground appear to have been more embarrassed than relieved,'' the left-leaning newspaper Liberation said in an editorial. ``They fear this measure will further stir things up, or believe it to be either an overreaction or totally useless.''

Seeking to end the unrest, Villepin pledged on Monday to restore some 100 million euros in funding for grass roots associations working in tough neighbourhoods, and improve prospects in education, the labor market and housing.

Fears that riots might erupt in other European countries have helped push down the value of the euro currency and damaged France's image abroad, though Finance Minister Thierry Breton said the economy had been unscathed.

Sotheby's

David Smith's "CUBI XXVIII" sold for $23.8 million.

Being a big spender required some effort: Mr. Gagosian's competitors hung on well into the double-digit-millions. All were hoping to own "CUBI XXVIII" (1965), the last of the artist's renowned Cubi series. The catalog designated it as "Property of a Texas Foundation," but before the sale experts identified the foundation as that of the Texas oil heir and financier Sid Bass,.

The reason for the high price was plain to lovers of contemporary art: this elegantly composed melding of boxes and columns may be the last example of the series to come on the market for some time. Most of the others are in museums or collections where they will stay for generations. So this last-chance opportunity was irresistible, which is why the sculpture's final price was nearly double its high estimate, $12 million.

That price was by far the brightest spot in a successful but often lifeless sale, the third evening auction in a row. The audience seemed fatigued, although a few bidders came to life when desirable works appeared on the turntable at the front of the York Avenue salesroom.

The evening totaled $114.4 million, above its high estimate of $108 million. Of the 54 lots, only 6 went unsold. While the numbers are impressive, they can't compare to Christie's corresponding sale on Tuesday night, which totaled $157.4 million, above its high estimate, $145.6 million, and Christie's highest total for any sale of postwar and contemporary art.

(Prices of record include Sotheby's commission: 20 percent of the first $200,000 of the hammer price and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)

Christie's had had two important collections, which Sotheby's lacked, but some of last night's offerings were already well known because they were being sold by dealers like Alberto Mugrabi and Anthony d'Offay. Moreover, Sotheby's had given some sellers guarantees - undisclosed minimum sums promised regardless of the sale's outcome.

For some works, the investment paid off. "Jackie Frieze" (1964), one of the many paintings that were guaranteed, was one of two extant works in which Andy Warhol assembled portraits of Jacqueline Kennedy in a frieze format.Three telephone bidders wanted it, but no one went crazy. The hammer price was $8.2 million, just over the $8 million low estimate (with commission, $9.2 million).

There was less interest in "Untitled (New York City)," from 1968, one of Cy Twombly's gray blackboard canvases. The seller was Francis Dittmer, the Chicago collector. The sole bidder paid $8.6 million, a record for the artist.

Mr. Gagosian had Damien Hirst's "Most Beautiful Thing in the World" for sale last year. This 2003 work, a luminous roundel filled with butterfly wings, was estimated at $950,000 to $1.2 million. A telephone bidder paid $1.3 million.

Prices for Francis Bacon's works have soared this season. Last night "Three Studies for Self-Portrait," a 1976 triptych being sold by Robert Shaye, the chairman and chief executive of New Line Cinema, was estimated at $4 million to $6 million. Four bidders went for the painting, which sold to Andrew Fabricant, the Manhattan dealer, for $5.1 million.

At Christie's on Tuesday night, a photograph by Richard Prince broke two records: for his works at auction, and for any photograph at auction. Last night's sale featured three works by the artist, all from Mr. Mugrabi. "Untitled (Cowboys)," from 1993, one of Mr. Prince's images of the Marlboro Man, was expected to sell for $600,000 to $800,000. What a difference four years - and 24 hours - can make. While an an 1989 cowboy photograph set the records at Christie's, selling for $1.2 mllion, there was no bid in sight for last night's cowboys. A 1980 fashion photograph also failed to sell.

Mr. Prince fared better with one of his paintings of naughty nurses. Aby Rosen, the real estate developer, bought "Mountain Nurse" (2003) for $744,000, in the middle of its $600,00 to $800,000 estimate.

Last night Calder's "Haverford Monster (Maquette)," a standing mobile, was sold to a telephone bidder for $1.4 million, far above its high estimate, $800,000. Sotheby's sold the monumental version in 1994 for what then seemed like a huge price: $1.08 million.

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Construction began last week on a $2.2 billion PATH commuter train terminal and transportation hub at the World Trade Center site.

"We look forward to working ourselves out of business," said Stefan Pryor, the president of the corporation, which was never envisioned as a permanent agency. "But we don't think we've accomplished that goal yet."

It is not clear how the corporation will fit with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to become more involved at ground zero. He is entitled to appoint eight of the corporation's 16 directors but now has only three appointees on the board, though he pledged to fill the vacancies after the election.

Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, who is not a director but represents the mayor at board meetings, said, "With the exception of what's going to happen with the commercial buildings, the truth is the vast, vast majority of decisions have basically been made."

"So naturally," he added, "the role of the L.M.D.C. declines as the responsibility for actually building things devolves to the respective agencies."

Governor Pataki still views the corporation as "central to the rebuilding efforts," a spokeswoman said last month, citing its responsibility for designing the 9/11 memorial and memorial museum, championing a performing arts center on the World Trade Center site and allocating the remaining federal redevelopment grants.

On Sept. 28, the governor seemed to undermine the corporation when he declared - while the board was reviewing the matter - that the International Freedom Center museum could not be placed in the memorial area. (State officials note that Mr. Pataki told the corporation to look for an alternative place for the museum, a search that might have succeeded had the Freedom Center executives not pulled the plug on their own project.)

As a result, Roland W. Betts, one of Mr. Pataki's original appointees and a business partner of a Freedom Center co-founder, Tom A. Bernstein, resigned from the board, saying the corporation's "ongoing role has been severely marginalized." Other directors also considered resigning, though none are known to have done so.

That is not the only way in which influence and power have shifted recently. John P. Cahill, the governor's chief of staff - not the corporation chairman or president - has emerged as the top downtown development official. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has asserted itself in the construction process. And the Alliance for Downtown New York and Community Board 1 have lost representation on the board.

Supporters still see the corporation as a vital intermediary among the many groups with a stake at ground zero. They contend that it is reaching a critical point in designing the memorial. And they point out that it must oversee demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building, which it owns, a process that will last until 2007.

They envision the corporation as the defender of Daniel Libeskind's master site plan; as the advocate of a performing arts center, for which the board committed $50 million, and of cultural institutions generally downtown; and as the partner in redevelopment projects in Chinatown, at the Hudson River Park, on Fulton and Greenwich Streets and along the East River waterfront.

Robert P. Balachandran, the former president and chief executive of the Hudson River Park Trust, whom Mr. Pataki appointed to the board in 2004, said, "Our role is even more crystalline and important now than it ever was before."

The Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation, as it was first called, was created Nov. 5, 2001, as a subsidiary of the state's Urban Development Corporation. Charles A. Gargano, the chairman of the parent corporation, said it would "oversee all aspects of revitalizing and rebuilding Lower Manhattan."

Faced with the possibility that Mark Green, a Democrat, would be elected mayor, the Republican administration in Albany allocated six of nine board seats to the governor and three to the mayor. In April 2002, with a Republican mayor in office, the board was expanded to 16 members. The mayor and governor were each given eight appointees.

That sounds like city-state parity, but the Urban Development Corporation owns all the shares in the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which was incorporated in December 2001. It was granted "all purposes, powers and functions entrusted to the U.D.C.," including property condemnation, and charged with the "implementation and management" of redevelopment south of Houston Street."