Rioting erupted on the Champs-Elysées on Saturday as police fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands of demonstrators protesting against fuel tax increases and President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reforms.

The bottom of the Arc de Triomphe was obscured by clouds of tear gas while “yellow vest” demonstrators set fire to a trailer and barricades on Paris’s most famous avenue. They chanted “Macron démission” (Macron resign) and some sang the U2 song “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, about the shooting of protesters in Northern Ireland in 1972.

Christophe Castaner, the interior minister, accused Marine Le Pen, the far-Right leader, of encouraging her supporters to clash with police. “The ultra-Right is mobilised and is building barricades on the Champs-Elysées,” he said. Ms Le Pen, who has backed the protests, said: “I never called for any violence whatsoever.”

Mr Castaner blamed the clashes on a minority of “casseurs” (troublemakers) who hurled rocks and bottles at police while most of the protesters demonstrated peacefully.

The authorities said about 8,000 people took to the streets of Paris, 5,000 of whom gathered on the Champs-Elysées. Some 3,000 police were deployed in Paris and thousands more outside the capital.