France opens 'attempted murder' probe after rioters set a police officer's leg on fire with a petrol bomb in Paris

France's interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, called the violence "extraordinary" and characterised the petrol bomb assault as "what I call a murder attempt", with prosecutors noting that nobody has yet been arrested over the incident. The gendarme who was set on fire said in an RTL interview that the heat had melted his leg and shin protections, adding that the accelerant was "so greasy I could feel it spreading across my skin". More than 770 people were detained across France on Saturday as 320,000 demonstrators took to streets nationwide for a third straight weekend of protests over rising living costs and deteriorating public services.

Paris prosecutors have identified three suspects wearing black in the style of Black Bloc protesters, but no charges have been brought.

The officer told Le Figaro that his unit had faced "several hundred hostile, well-equipped adversaries" armed with a device of "far greater burning capacity than a standard Molotov cocktail".

Marine Le Pen called for those responsible to be "punished with the utmost severity", while Germany also pledged a firm response to looting and unrest in Frankfurt.