Six people were arrested after violence erupted in a Paris suburb over police checking the identity of a woman wearing a Muslim veil.
Public disturbances have shaken depressed, largely immigrant quarters of major French cities at regular intervals for years.
Often the protests are triggered by resentment over spot police checks.
It is illegal in France for women to wear full face veils in public.
The law is contested in the mainly Muslim suburbs that ring major cities.
In Trappes, a suburb southwest of Paris, a crowd gathered after the arrest of a man who had assaulted a police officer.
As part of the arrest an identity check was carried out on the man's wife,who was entirely veiled.
Some 250 people who collected outside the Trappes police station threw stones and other projectiles and destroyed property before being repelled by riot police.
A witness said the crowd called on police to release the husband but were "insulted" by authorities.
Police said order was restored by daybreak in Trappes, an area of housing estates.
Reinforcements sent in overnight will remain in coming hours to help ensure calm.
Authorities dealing with immigrant unrest fear a repeat of riots in 2005, France's worst for 40 years, when nationwide violence led to the imposition of a state of emergency.
In Trappes, as cleanup crews cleared away shattered glass from bus shelters, burned bins and stones littered the pavement.
