Paris ? The French government declared a state of emergency Tuesday after nearly two weeks of rioting, and the prime minister said the nation faced a “moment of truth.”

The extraordinary security measures, to begin today and be valid for 12 days, clear the way for curfews to try to halt the country’s worst civil unrest since the student uprisings of 1968.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, tacitly acknowledging that France has failed to live up to its egalitarian ideals, reached out to the heavily immigrant suburbs where the rioting began. He said France must make a priority of working against the discrimination that feeds the frustration of youths made to feel that they do not belong in France.

“The effectiveness of our integration model is in question,” the prime minister told parliament. He called the riots “a warning” and “an appeal.”

Despite his conciliatory tone, Villepin said riot police faced “determined individuals, structured gangs, organized criminality,” and that restoring order “will take time.” Rioters have been using mobile phone text messages and the Internet to organize arson attacks, said police, who arrested two teenage bloggers accused of inciting other youths to riot.

Charred cars destroyed in recent violence are piled up in a dumping ground Tuesday in Grigny, south of Paris. French Cabinet ministers met Tuesday to authorize curfews aimed at stopping rioters after the country's worst civil unrest in decades raged for a 12th night.

“We must be lucid: The Republic is at a moment of truth,” Villepin said.

Lawmakers at the impassioned parliamentary debate also spoke frankly about France’s failings. But criticism of the government extended well beyond the country’s borders.

Arson attacks, rioting and other unrest have spread from the suburbs to hundreds of cities and towns – though acts of violence were down somewhat Monday night from the previous evening.

In the first reports of violence Tuesday night, a clash broke out between youths who threw gasoline bombs and police who retaliated with tear gas, LCI television said.

The 50-year-old state-of-emergency law that President Jacques Chirac invoked was originally drawn up to quell unrest in Algeria during its war of independence from France and was last used in December 1984 by the Socialist government of President Francois Mitterrand against rioting in the French Pacific Ocean territory of New Caledonia.

That Chirac took such steps was a measure both of the gravity of the crisis and of his sorely tested government’s determination to restore control.

“France is wounded. It does not recognize itself in these devastated streets and neighborhoods, in this outburst of hatred and of violence that vandalizes and kills,” Villepin said. “The return to order is the absolute priority.”