Petrol sales were limited to cut the car torchings. Police last year said they would no longer release figures for the number of vehicles set on fire to put an end to the "competition and ranking" that had emerged, with more than 1,000 vehicles being torched every year. Youths in the often depressed suburbs of French cities have been torching hundreds of vehicles on New Year's Eve since the early 1990s in what police say has become a competition to see which area can cause the most damage.

http://www.thelocal.fr/2154/20111230/