France opens attempted-murder probe after firebomb attacks on security forces in Paris

The reported attack took place on Saturday, during what the supplied reports described as the third weekend of demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people. The protests were held in Paris and elsewhere, but the investigation described by prosecutors concerns the petrol-bomb attacks on security forces in the capital. The available evidence does not establish whether every reported firebomb incident formed part of one attack or several separate incidents.

The Paris police prefecture said several hundred rioters attacked security forces with projectiles, including a Molotov cocktail. That account places the firebombing within a wider confrontation involving attacks on officers, rather than presenting the incident as an isolated exchange. Prosecutors separately said explosive devices were thrown at approximately 15 gendarmes as well as police officers.

Images and video described in the reporting showed an incendiary device exploding at the feet of an officer in protective gear and engulfing the lower part of the officer’s body in flames. The officer suffered burns or other injuries; one report specified second-degree burns. The nature and severity of injuries beyond the reported case are less clearly established in the available accounts.

The prosecutor’s account gives the investigation its legal focus: attempted murder of people holding public authority. It also defines the immediate investigative task. No suspects had been arrested or were in custody at the time of reporting, and investigators were working to identify those responsible. The evidence supplied does not name suspects or establish who carried out the attacks.

The reported injury figures require separate treatment because they cover different scopes. Al Jazeera, attributing its account to a report by RTL citing a gendarmerie statement, said 13 members of the affected officer’s unit were injured. That figure should not be treated as the total for all security personnel involved in the incident.

Al Jazeera also reported, attributing the figure to the interior ministry, that 159 law-enforcement members were injured during the protests and Halloween celebrations. That broader number is not necessarily limited to the petrol-bomb incident and may not be directly comparable with the figure for the officer’s unit. The available reporting does not resolve whether the two figures overlap.

Taken together, the confirmed elements are the opening of the Paris investigation, the use of petrol bombs or Molotov cocktails against security forces, and the reported burning and injury of at least one officer. The unresolved points are the identities of those responsible, the full number of officers injured in the specific incident, and the relationship between the separate firebomb reports. Those limits leave the investigation’s central question—who carried out the attacks—open.