LAST UPDATE | 4 hrs ago

FRANCE HAS LAUNCHED an attempted murder investigation after petrol bombs were thrown at security forces during a weekend protest in Paris, prosecutors told AFP on Sunday.

On Saturday, clashes erupted in Paris and some other cities after hundreds of thousands of people staged a third weekend of protests against soaring living costs.

The Paris police prefecture said that several hundred rioters had attacked security forces with projectiles, including a Molotov cocktail. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez has decried an “extraordinary” level of violence from some rioters.

“Explosive devices were thrown at around 15 gendarmes as well as police officers,” the prosecutor’s office said on Sunday.

Gendarmes are military police officers who are part of the French armed forces.

Prosecutors said an investigation had been opened for “attempted murder of persons vested with public authority”.

Dramatic images, including AFP photos and video, showed a homemade incendiary device exploding at the feet of a security officer in eastern Paris, engulfing his lower body in flames.

An assessment of the injured was ongoing, prosecutors said, adding that the reported injuries include second-degree burns.

Initial complaints were expected to be filed on Sunday.

The gendarme struck by the Molotov cocktail told French television of the burns he suffered, describing “skin that stings” and a “rain” of projectiles thrown at his unit.

Fewer shops damaged 

No suspects “have been arrested at this stage in connection with the incident”, the prosecutor’s office said, adding that investigators were working to identify those responsible.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said those responsible for the firebomb attack must be “punished with the utmost severity”, in a post on X, describing images of the officer in flames as “unbearable”.

More than 770 people were arrested during weekend protests in France, the interior ministry said on Sunday. The ministry said there had been “no major incidents” late on Saturday.

The number of shops damaged on the sidelines of Saturday’s protests was significantly lower than during previous weekends, with some 20 businesses affected, according to France’s Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI).

But CCI France voiced concern about the impact of the protests on retail activity ahead of the year-end holiday season, a peak period for businesses

This is the third consecutive weekend of protests over living costs and education. 

“The marches proceeded smoothly within the framework of the declared demonstrations,” the ministry said, while noting that “radical elements” in several cities, including Bordeaux, Toulouse and Marseille, had attempted to enter city centres “with the aim of carrying out vandalism and looting”.

Paris police banned union and yellow vest marches through the city centre on Friday, ordering demonstrations to follow a single route along the capital’s outer boulevards, from Porte de Bagnolet to Porte de Charenton. Unions and student groups challenged the restrictions in court.

President Emmanuel Macron said marches on Monday would stay out of city centres to protect shops.

Demonstrators gathered at a fire during a protest in Marseille last weekend Alamy Alamy

Authorities counted about 550,000 marchers on 17 October, when rioters looted hundreds of shops, and 410,000 last Saturday, when protests were largely peaceful, but police made more than 1,300 arrests.

In Germany, a youth initiative called “Gen Z regelt” – roughly “Gen Z’s got this” – urged protests in some 30 cities “for education, health, climate protection and an affordable life,” and against any return of military conscription.

Organisers said more than 140,000 people signed up online.

A boarded up window on the Swiss luxury jewelry and watch retailer Chopard in Berlin Alamy Alamy

Berlin police expect about 10,000 people at the Brandenburg Gate. Some shops on the Kurfuerstendamm boulevard boarded up windows, although authorities said they were unaware of specific threats of violence.

In Barcelona, Spain, Catalan police planned their highest-level alert after an anonymous TikTok network called Blocus urged new gatherings. Rioting there last Saturday led to about 130 arrests, mostly of minors.

Italian police were on alert after clashes in Milan, Turin and Bologna, and calls to protest circulated on TikTok in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal.