Paris was engulfed with its worst riot in over a decade.

Protesters smash glass, clash with riot police

PARIS — France’s most violent urban riot in a decade engulfed central Paris on Saturday as “yellow jacket” activists torched cars, smashed windows, looted stores and tagged the Arc de Triomphe with multicolored graffiti.

Protesters angry about rising taxes and the high cost of living clashed with French riot police, who closed off some of the city’s most popular tourist areas and fired tear gas and water cannon as they tried to quell the mayhem in the streets.

It was the third straight weekend of clashes in Paris with activists dressed in the fluorescent yellow vests of a new protest movement and the worst urban violence since at least 2005. The scene contrasted sharply with other protests in France, where demonstrations and road blockades elsewhere on Saturday were largely peaceful.

Thousands of French police were deployed to try to contain the violence, which began Saturday morning near the Arc de Triomphe and continued well after dark. Paris police said at least 110 people, including 20 police officers, were injured in the violent protests and 224 others were arrested.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, speaking on French television channel TF1, said one protester was in a life-threatening condition after being part of a group pulling down a metal fence at the Tuileries gardens. A video on social media shows the heavy fence falling on some protesters.

By the afternoon, clashes continued down several streets popular with tourists. Pockets of demonstrators built makeshift barricades in the middle of Paris streets, lit fires, torched cars and trash cans, threw rocks at police and smashed and looted stores.

Some demonstrators removed the barriers protecting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I to pose near its eternal flame and sing the national anthem.

Kamil Zihnioglu The Associated Press Masked demonstrators wearing yellow jackets appear through tear gas Saturday near the Champs-Elysees during a demonstration in Paris. Protesters have said they are angry about the country’s high cost of living.