PARIS (Reuters) - Interior Minister Manuel Valls defended on Monday France's ban on wearing full-face veils in public places after a police check on a veiled Muslim woman sparked riots in a Paris suburb at the weekend. The 2010 law was brought in by conservative former president Nicolas Sarkozy and targets burqa and niqab garments that conceal the face rather than the headscarf that is more common among French Muslim women. A police check on a couple in the southwest suburb of Trappes sparked an angry confrontation that led overnight on Friday to a police station being surrounded by several hundred people, some hurling rocks. "Police did their job perfectly," Valls told RTL radio. The suburb was mostly calm on Monday, although police who were pelted with firecrackers from rooftops overnight on Sunday made a further two arrests. The incident happened during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Critics say the law is patchily enforced as police seek to avoid confrontations in poor neighborhoods with high Muslim populations. The rioting at the weekend was the first time the ban had let to an outbreak of violence. While Sarkozy singled out the suburbs as an area of special concern, Hollande has so far said they must be treated like any other part of France. Valls said that while authorities would be tough in dealing with radical Islam it was not targeting ordinary Muslims. "I'm not confusing people who follow Ramadan with the people who wear the veil," he said. Reporting By Nicholas Vinocur; editing by Mark John