Police were attacked with petrol bombs and a French press photographer was assaulted during a fifth night of violence on the streets of Belfast.

The clashes began on Friday after police tried to enforce a decision banning the Protestant Orange Order from marching through a Catholic republican area of the Northern Ireland capital.

Large crowds gathered on the city's Lower Newtownards Road, the Northern Ireland Police Service (PSNI) said.

A police vehicle was struck by two petrol bombs and a number of other missiles.

Four cars were hijacked and set on fire and the French photographer who was assaulted had his camera stolen.

Trouble also flared in the Mount Vernon area of north Belfast and in the Woodvale Road and North Queen Street areas.

About 1,000 police officers from mainland Britain had been sent to Northern Ireland in anticipation of tensions over the traditional July 12 parades.

The event is the climax of the Orange Order's marching season, which marks the victory of Protestant king William III of Orange over the deposed Catholic king James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

It is a flashpoint for tensions between the Protestant and Catholic communities in the province.

Northern Ireland was devastated by three decades of sectarian violence from the 1970s to the 1990s.

AFP