Photos show Paris streets erupting in protest and 'extreme and unprecedented violence'

Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images

Teargas surrounds protesters as they clash with riot police during a 'Yellow Vest' demonstration near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Saturday.

Paris' streets were engulfed in protest for the third weekend in a row as tensions over gas prices and inequality left the city lined with burnt cars and damaged building.

Around 36,000 people demonstrated on Saturday, leaving French President Emanuel Macron searching for ways to defuse tensions. Around France, the protests have left three dead, more than 260 wounded and more than 400 arrested.

The Protests began as a demonstration against rising gas prices but have evolved into a broader anti-government movement.

While Saturday's protest by the "Yellow Vest" movement had a smaller turnout than those before it, the protests were the most destructive, filling Paris' famous streets and monuments streets with riot police and tear gas.

The prefect of Paris, Michel Delpuech, told reporters late Sunday that the police had been faced with "extreme and unprecedented violence" and that protesters had thrown hammers and steel ball bearings at them.

Scroll down to see what the protests, and their aftermath, looked like.