One of the police officers was "seriously injured on the hands and face due to burns from Molotov cocktails," said a police source. Another sustained a hand injury from a stinger grenade.

Matthias Fekl, the French interior minister, denounced the "very serious violence by several hundred professional vandals come with only one goal: to attack security forces, to smash a policeman and wreak damage."

They came, he added, "to injure and kill police officers".

Video showed riot police surrounding around 150 protesters disrupting the march after cordoning off most of them from the rest of the crowd near the Place de la Bastille. However, some continued to lob firebombs that exploded into flames in the street.

Loud explosions, apparently from large firecrackers, rang out across central Paris. Several shops and a bus shelter were vandalised.