Paris ? Residents of poor French neighborhoods where weeks of fiery riots broke out last year were dashing to town halls to register to vote before today’s deadline, driven by campaigns urging minority youths to use the electoral process – not violence – to vent their frustrations.

Registration has risen sharply among the largely Arab and black African residents in some of the squalid suburbs of Paris that were the epicenter of the fall 2005 riots.

In the Saint-Denis region north of Paris, electoral officer Christine Martin said there were 300 registrations on Thursday alone, just ahead of today’s deadline to vote in the spring’s presidential election. She said 5,300 people have registered since the beginning of the year, compared to less than 4,000 in 2001 – the year before the last presidential vote.

Some 50 people also registered every day in December in Clichy-Sous-Bois, said town official Didier Ostre. The suburb northeast of Paris is where the riots erupted on Oct. 27, 2005, after two youths were electrocuted.

Surveys by The Associated Press and French newspapers have shown an upward trend in voter registration in suburbs across the country as well.

Some areas have seen an increase of up to 30 percent over the registration numbers for the last presidential vote, the daily Le Figaro reported. In Trappes, south of Paris, officials say there has been a 45 percent increase in registration over 2001.