The French government on Saturday denounced "unacceptable violence" at a protest led by the hard left against police brutality, with officers trapped in their police vehicle after it was attacked, an AFP correspondent said.
The nationwide protest came just under three months after the point-blank killing by a policeman of youth outside Paris at a traffic check sparked over a week of rioting in Paris and elsewhere.
Hundreds of people wearing black and in hoods broke away from the main march of several thousand people in Paris
They smashed the windows of a bank branch and threw objects at a police car stuck in traffic, an AFP reporter said.
Paris police said that the police car was attacked with a crowbar and only the intervention of an anti-riot police unit allowed the release of the vehicle.
A video later published by the BFMTV channel and shared on the internet showed a group of masked protesters running after the car, repeatedly kicking it, as one man smashes a window with a crowbar.
An officer gets out and brandishes his service weapon, but does not fire it and gets back in the vehicle.
"We see where anti-police hatred leads," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter, denouncing "unacceptable violence" against the police.
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said three people had been arrested over the incident.
Unions said some 80,000 people were expected to protest across France, responding to a call by the radical left including the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party but police put the number at 13,800.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Featured Video Of The Day
Bengal Governor Shares Concerns Raised By Students After Kolkata Rape-Murder In Hospital
Parents Gave Names Of Interns, Doctors To CBI In Kolkata Horror: Sources Video: Woman Tries To Jump Off Mumbai's Atal Setu, Saved By Driver, Cops Private Jets, Luxury Cars: Lavish Life Of "Ketamine Queen" Jasveen Sangha "Shoot Me Up With...": What Matthew Perry Told Assistant Hours Before Death Private Jets, Luxury Cars: Lavish Life Of "Ketamine Queen" Jasveen Sangha Kerala Launches 1st Digital Court For Negotiable Instruments Cases Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.