Two French police officers have been brutally beaten by a gang of youths after trying to clear a crowd from a New Year's Eve party.

The attack took place in Champigny-sur-Marne, a district in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, just after midnight.

Officers had been called to attend to a disturbance at a private party and attempted to clear a crowd of 300 or 400 people.

They then fired tear gas after "a group of particularly violent individuals laid into the police," local security chief Jean-Yves Oses said, with people beating and kicking two officers.

Footage shared on social media shows a young female officer cowering on the ground as she is kicked and stamped on by multiple people.


She suffered multiple bruises, while her male colleague suffered a broken nose and bruises.

Attackers shouted "beat them, take their weapons" according to one witness who spoke to local reporters.

Another video shows a car being turned over and vandalised by the rowdy partygoers.

Les coupables du lynchage lâche et criminel des policiers faisant leur devoir une nuit de 31 décembre seront retrouvés et punis. Force restera à la loi. Honneur à la police et soutien total à tous les agents bassement agressés. — Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) January 1, 2018

Two people have been arrested on suspicion of vandalism, but there have so far been no arrests over the attack.

Reacting to the video, a spokesman for the union for French police officers, SCSI, said: "These images unfortunately reflect the lives of police officers."

Violence and the torching of cars has become somewhat of a New Year's Eve tradition in some of France's high-rise suburbs.

This year, more than a thousand cars were set on fire and over 500 people arrested, with around 140,000 officers deployed across France for the New Year's Eve celebrations.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the attack a "cowardly and criminal lynching" and said the culprits "will be found and punished".

The French minister of the interior denounced the attack on Twitter, saying the current "society of violence cannot continue to exist" in France, and called for an end to what he called "an infernal mechanics" at work in some areas.

France has been on alert following a number of high profile terrorist attacks since 2015, resulting in the deaths of 241 people.