Paris riot police arrested 27 people during overnight clashes with dozens of youths took place in the center of Paris, after a day of marches to demand for labor law reforms that ended in violence.
Some opposition lawmakers and representatives of the police union urged the government to take strong action against the demonstrations and said it was time to directly prohibit youth protests which are mostly in the area where pacíficas- occurred on Thursday night skirmishes.
The clashes occurred when police moved to remove a group of about 150 young people from the Palace Square of the Republic, at dawn. Protesters torched cars and threw some pieces of concrete and paving stones to the police.
Twenty-four of the 27 detainees were in custody, police said. "These are mostly people seeking fight," said Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.
The arrests come at a time when the French police and military forces are working overtime to strengthen security after deadly attacks by militants in November 2015 in the capital.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across the country on Thursday to protest against labor law reforms aimed at facilitating hiring and firing. As part of the protests, some violent clashes erupted in several cities.
The Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 214 people were arrested in total. Seventy-eight policemen were wounded, one of them seriously by a skull fracture caused by a paving stone. Michel Cadot prefect of the Paris police said that organized groups were behind the violence.
Some union representatives urged the police force chiefs to issue permits under protest. The French government condemned the violence but, a year of national elections, seems to want to avoid curfews that could be imposed under the state of emergency that governed after the November attacks.