Protesters shot fireworks at police and set cars ablaze in the working class Paris suburb of Nanterre on Wednesday, in a second night of unrest following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy during a traffic stop there.
The use of lethal force by officers against the teenager, who was of North African origin, has fed into a deep-rooted perception of police brutality in the ethnically diverse suburbs of France's biggest cities.
Shortly before midnight, a trail of overturned vehicles burned as fireworks fizzed at police lines on Nanterre's Avenue Pablo Picasso.
Police clashed with protesters in the northern city of Lille and in Toulouse in the southwest and there was also unrest in Amiens, Dijon and the Essonne administrative department south of the French capital, a police spokesman said.
French media reported incidents in numerous other locations across the greater Paris region. Videos on social media showed dozens of fireworks being directed at the Montreuil town hall, on the eastern edge of Paris.
