By Sybille de La Hamaide PARIS, Feb 12 (Reuters) - From church roofs and grand statues to drain covers and even the humble tweezer, objects made of metal are being targeted by thieves in France looking to cash in on a surge in raw material prices, the police said on Monday. Thefts of copper, aluminium, zinc and nickel were up 144 percent in France last year. "We are witnessing a real pillage of companies' assets," Colonel Philippe Schneider, who heads a police division that specialises in countering such crime, told reporters. "Everything can be stolen, everything can be sold -- cables, drain covers, sculptures," Schneider said. "We even had 300 kilograms of tweezers stolen." Other targets included plane doors, phone booth floors, car wheel rims, cemetery gates and a church roof made of zinc. Copper, widely used in construction and industry, became a big target for thieves last year as prices of the metal doubled to $8,800 a tonne at one point due to booming Asia demand. EASY PROFIT Schneider said stealing cable from a building site or hijacking trucks loaded with scrap metal could pay more than robbing a cash machine or a bank and was far less risky. "Stealing 10 tonnes of copper is simple," he said. "Alongside the traditional petty thefts are methods typical of organised crime, such as ... armed robberies, often by international networks." However, the number of incidents reported had dropped around 40 percent since October, partly due to a fall in prices and partly because of police efforts to break up organised gangs, he said. World copper prices have tumbled over the past few months but remain around 20 percent higher than at the same time last year. Schneider said thieves often sold metal to recycling companies. However, of the 2,500 to 3,000 recycling firms in France, a maximum of 100 were involved in metals trafficking.
