For the gendarmes and police officers assigned to manage the end of a Paris march, the attack brought burns and injuries, including to fourteen members of one unit.
The Paris police prefecture said several hundred rioters had attacked security forces with projectiles, including a Molotov cocktail. The person who threw it has not been identified and no suspects have been arrested.
Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across France on Saturday against soaring living costs and government policies, in a third weekend of protests. Clashes later broke out in Paris and some other cities.
At Porte de Charenton, in the 12th arrondissement, thousands had gathered where the march was due to end. Captain Alexandre, a mobile gendarme from Eure-et-Loir, was among officers stationed at points around the area to filter, inform and direct protesters towards open metro stations.
The morning had been calm, with demonstrators setting out their demands peacefully, although there had been hateful remarks aimed at the security forces. Alexandre said: 'On n'a pas vraiment senti la tension monter' (We didn't really feel the tension rise).
Then approximately one hundred or more people concentrated their attack on the gendarmerie unit's positions. Dozens of masked people dressed in black used hammers to remove paving stones and threw them at police.
Police fired tear gas and made several baton charges as the area became saturated with tear gas.
Prosecutors said explosive projectiles had targeted about 15 gendarmes as well as police officers. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at the security forces, and an incendiary device exploded at a gendarme's feet, setting his protective equipment alight.
Photographs and video from the AFP news agency showed the device explode at the officer's feet and ignite his protective gear.
Alexandre was burned on the leg. He told French television that he had suffered 'skin that stings' amid a 'rain' of projectiles, and said: 'Je me suis rendu compte assez tardivement que j'étais vraiment en feu' (I realized quite late that I was truly on fire).
Fourteen members of his unit were wounded. Prosecutors said the reported injuries included second-degree burns and tinnitus, while stressing that the details remained provisional.
Paris prosecutors opened an investigation on Sunday for 'attempted murder of persons vested with public authority'. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez described the attack as an attempted murder and called the level of violence from rioters 'extraordinary'.
Marine Le Pen said those responsible for the firebomb attack must be 'punished with the utmost severity', describing images of the officer in flames as 'unbearable'.
More than 770 people were arrested during the weekend protests in France, the interior ministry said on Sunday.
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