Emmanuel Macron has faced a wave of criticism after being spotted at a concert last night while rioters lit fires and shot fireworks at police on a third night of unrest.
More than 600 people have been arrested and at least 200 police officers injured as tensions grew over the deadly police shooting of a 17-year-old identified only by his first name, Nahel.
Armoured police vehicles rammed through the charred remains of cars which had been flipped and set ablaze in the northwestern Paris suburb of Nanterre.
On the other side of Paris, protesters lit a fire at the city hall of the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois and set a bus depot ablaze in Aubervilliers.
Meanwhile, Macron was pictured backstage with his wife Brigitte at an Elton John concert in the capital's Accor Arena.
One person tweeted alongside a photo: "The President of the Republic at the Elton John concert while France is burning."
Another wrote: "It's scandalous. Roll on 2027", and a third said: "Is it really a surprise?"
A fourth added: "Always where it's needed."
The comments came as a huge clean up got underway in Paris this morning after rioters destroyed dozens of buildings.
Staff at one estate agency were seen in tears as they surveyed their looted office.
They sobbed into their hankies as they looked into the premises they had left at 5pm last night before the protesters struck.
Across the road a woman stood stunned on her burnt out second balcony. She moved her children’s fire damaged bikes and tried to clean up the smoke stained mess.
Below two workmen boarded up the windows of the bank Credit Mutuel. Bakers, restaurants and cafes all had their windows smashed in the suburb of Nanterre.
Passers-by stood in shock as they filmed the extensive damage on their mobile phones.
Residents were allowed back into some of the burnt out apartment blocks to see the damage to their properties.
A strong smell of smoke still lingered over the area with the constant sound of police and fire brigade sirens.
Some 40,000 police officers were deployed to quell the protests last night, which saw 667 people arrested, the interior minister said. Some 307 were in the Paris region alone, according to police.
Around 200 police officers were hurt, according to a national police spokesperson.
No information was available about injuries among the rest of the population.
Schools, town halls and police stations were targeted by people setting fires, and police used tear gas, water cannons and dispersion grenades against rioters, the spokesperson said.
Interior minister Gerald Darmanin on Friday denounced what he called a night of "rare violence".
His office described the arrests as a sharp increase on previous operations as part of an overall government efforts to be "extremely firm" with rioters.
The government has stopped short of declaring a state of emergency - a measure taken to quell weeks of rioting around France that followed the accidental death of two boys fleeing police in 2005.
The police officer accused of pulling the trigger on Tuesday was handed a preliminary charge of voluntary homicide after prosecutor Pascal Prache said his initial investigation led him to conclude "the conditions for the legal use of the weapon were not met".
Preliminary charges mean investigating magistrates strongly suspect wrongdoing but need to investigate more before sending a case to trial.
The detained police officer's lawyer, speaking on French TV channel BFMTV, said the officer was sorry and "devastated".
The officer did what he thought was necessary in the moment, Laurent-Franck Lienard told the news outlet.
"He doesn't get up in the morning to kill people," Mr Lienard said of the officer, whose name has not been released as per French practice in criminal cases.
"He really didn't want to kill."
The shooting captured on video shocked France and stirred up long-simmering tensions between police and young people in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
The teenager's family and their lawyers have not said the police shooting was race-related and they did not release his surname or details about him.
Still, anti-racism activists renewed their complaints about police behaviour.
"We have to go beyond saying that things need to calm down," said Dominique Sopo, head of the campaign group SOS Racisme.
"The issue here is how do we make it so that we have a police force that when they see blacks and Arabs, don't tend to shout at them, use racist terms against them and in some cases, shoot them in the head."
In Nanterre, a peaceful march on Thursday afternoon in honour of Nahel was followed by escalating confrontations, with smoke billowing from cars and garbage bins set ablaze.
Tensions rose in places across France throughout the day.
The scenes in France's suburbs echoed 2005, when the deaths of 15-year-old Bouna Traore and 17-year-old Zyed Benna led to three weeks of riots, exposing anger and resentment in neglected housing projects.
The boys were electrocuted after hiding from police in a power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois.
Deadly use of firearms is less common in France than in the United States, though several people have died or been wounded by French police in recent years, prompting demands for more accountability.
France also saw protests against racial injustice after George Floyd's killing by police in Minnesota.
A police spokesperson said 13 people who did not comply with traffic stops were fatally shot by police last year.
This year, three people, including Nahel, have died in similar circumstances.
