A shocking video showing a French security officer engulfed in flames has pushed authorities to open an attempted murder investigation after petrol bombs were hurled at police during protests in Paris.
Clashes flared in the capital and other cities yesterday as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for a third consecutive weekend to denounce soaring living costs.
The Paris police prefecture said several hundred rioters targeted security forces with projectiles, including a Molotov cocktail.
Although disorder was less widespread than two weeks ago — when France saw some of its worst unrest in years — Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said yesterday that the violence from a minority of participants was “extraordinary”.
In one of the most arresting scenes, images showed a homemade incendiary device detonating at the feet of an officer in protective gear, setting his lower body alight.
Prosecutors that said an investigation had been opened for “attempted murder of persons vested with public authority”.
A demonstration and march against the rising cost of living in Paris, France
“Explosive devices were thrown at around 15 gendarmes as well as police officers,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Gendarmes are military police officers who are part of the French armed forces.
Prosecutors said they were still assessing injuries, noting that reported wounds included second-degree burns.
‘Under assault’
The gendarme hit by the Molotov cocktail said his unit was “under assault”, describing volleys of glass bottles, paving stones, shards of glass and firebombs.
“We were hit by several significant incendiary devices,” he told broadcaster RTL on condition of anonymity.
“The flammable substance was so greasy that I could feel it spreading across my skin,” he said. “I kept wondering when it would stop because I really felt as though I had been coated by the heat itself.”
A group of student protesters in Marseille dressed in Halloween
The officer said he sustained minor injuries, but the leg and shin protection on his riot gear melted.
He said that when he later watched footage of the attack, he was struck by “the intensity” of what happened, adding that the images made him realise “that we may also have come close to a catastrophe”.
His unit had been on leave but was called back ahead of the demonstrations.
The gendarmerie said 13 members of the officer’s unit were injured, according to RTL.
The prosecutor’s office said no suspects “have been arrested at this stage in connection with the incident” and that investigators were working to identify those responsible.
‘Far cry from 1968’
The latest protests have unfolded in a fraught political atmosphere, with presidential elections six months away and frontrunner Marine Le Pen promising to restore law and order if elected next year.
Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party, wrote on X that those behind the firebomb attack must be “punished with the utmost severity”.
Officers charge past a burning rubbish bin protests in Strasbourg
She and Bruno Retailleau, head of the right-wing Republicans, both described the images of the burning officer as “unbearable”.
Left-leaning Le Figaro said: “The days of the May 1968 riots are a far cry from today, when gendarmes facing the most violent protesters wore… ties.”
The interior ministry said more than 770 people were arrested across France.
It added that 159 members of law enforcement were injured during the protests and Halloween celebrations.
Damage to shops on the margins of Saturday’s demonstrations was far lower than in previous weekends, with about 20 businesses affected, according to France’s Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI).
Even so, CCI France warned that the repeated unrest could weigh on retail activity as the year-end holiday season approaches — traditionally one of the busiest periods for many businesses.
