PARIS - Police evicted about 140 mainly African squatters, some sobbing or screaming, from two dilapidated buildings Friday as authorities began a sweep of dwellings deemed fire hazards following two deadly blazes.

Inside one of the two buildings, the first of 60 set for closure, adults in brightly colored African robes fought to keep police out, pushing on the front door before stepping back to allow police with riot shields and truncheons pass through.

The evacuations, ordered by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, followed two recent fires that killed two dozen African immigrants in the French capital and put the issue of substandard housing on the national agenda. An April fire in a budget hotel killed another 24 people, mostly poor immigrants.

"Sarkozy, I don't know if he has children," Aoua Sila, a female squatter, said Friday after moving her possessions to the entrance of the apartment block. "What he is doing right now, we'd never do this to mothers or fathers of children!"

Neighbors looked on as families, apparently all from the Ivory Coast, were led into vans to be transferred to temporary accommodation in hotels.

Friday was the first day of school, and children were among the roughly 70 people forced out of each of the buildings.

"They're going to some temporary accommodation," said Ambassador Hyacinthe Marcel Kouassi. "After that, authorities will have to find them permanent, decent housing."

They need to become legal residents of France, he added.

The building owner was reportedly paying for two weeks' stay in Paris hotels.

The two apartment buildings evacuated Friday had been known for safety risks, Paris police headquarters said.

Roger Madec, mayor of the 19th district in northeast Paris where the second building was located, insisted it was safe and called the evacuation a "miserable operation."

The evictions come a day after Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin promised new housing to help the poorest.

Villepin said the government would rapidly build 28,000 units, and cede to the city land set aside for Paris' failed bid to host the 2012 Olympics - if municipal authorities agree to build 3,000 temporary and student housing units on it within 18 months. Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said he was "stunned" by the conditions, adding the 18-month timetable was "simply not realistic."

Associations also criticized the plan, saying the government was not taking the problem seriously enough.

The Right to Housing association said it was "floored" by Villepin's proposal to requisition land for 5,000 emergency units to be built by end of March 2006.

"In six months, what are they going to build? Portable cabins, mobile homes?" asked Patrick Doutreligne of the Abbe Pierre Foundation.