France has launched an attempted murder investigation after a petrol bomb was thrown at security forces during a weekend protest in Paris, prosecutors said on Sunday.

On Saturday, clashes erupted in Paris and some other cities after hundreds of thousands of people staged a third weekend of protests against soaring living costs.

The Paris police prefecture said that several hundred rioters had attacked security forces with projectiles, including a Molotov cocktail.

"Explosive devices were thrown at around fifteen gendarmes as well as police officers," the prosecutor's office said on Sunday.

Gendarmes are military police officers who are part of the French armed forces.

Prosecutors said an investigation had been opened for "attempted murder of persons vested with public authority".

Dramatic images showed a homemade incendiary device exploding at the feet of a security officer in eastern Paris.

An assessment of the injured was ongoing, prosecutors said, adding the reported injuries include second-degree burns.

No suspects "have been arrested at this stage in connection with the incident," the prosecutor's office said, adding that investigators were working to identify those responsible.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez on Saturday decried an "extraordinary" level of violence from some rioters.


Edited by Aaron Tam