French president Jacques Chirac said restoring public order was his government's "absolute priority" as the country saw 11 consecutive nights of rioting since Oct 27.

"Those who want to sow violence of fear, they will be arrested, judged and punished," vowed Chirac after chairing an emergency meeting of key ministers.

"(The meeting) took a certain number of decisions to bolster the action of police and the courts, because today the absolute priority is restoring security and public order."

But there was no sign an end to the rampages that have spread out from Paris to some 200 cities. Police have come under attack in several locations.

In Grigny, south of Paris, some 30 officers were hurt, two seriously, when assailants fired at them with buckshot, police said.

A car was also used as a battering ram against a police station in the Grand-Mare suburb in the western city of Rouen.

In the southern city of Toulouse, police had to fire tear gas grenades to push back a mob throwing stones and bottles.

"These individuals seem to be looking for contact with police, and they are attacking us, unlike during the other nights," a senior officer said.

Arsonists also set fire to cars and trash cans in the cities of Nantes, Orleans and Rennes, and youths clashed with police in the southern city of Toulouse even as the meeting was ending.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who attended the meeting with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and the ministers for defence, justice, the economy and education, said more police would be deployed wherever required.

There will be "a reinforcement of security forces anywhere in the country if it is necessary. We will not accept any lawless zone," de Villepin said.

Unprecedented hostility

The violence has gone on unabated despite the deployment of thousands of police.

More than 800 people have been arrested and 3,500 vehicles torched, mainly in the working-class, high-immigration suburbs of Paris that are at the centre of the troubles. Most of those arrests and arson attacks occurred over the weekend.

A police chief, Frederic Aureal, said his officers were encountering an unprecedented hostility from gangs, which he described as "prepared, structured, armed".

"We have come face-to-face with people who have attacked us with picks, petanque balls, many Molotov cocktails," he said.

So far, no one has been killed in the unrest, which was sparked by the electrocution deaths of two teenagers who hid in an electrical sub-station in northeastern Paris to escape a police identity check.

At least two people have been badly burnt by Molotov cocktails: a fireman, and a handicapped woman unable to get off an ambushed bus.

A 61-year-old was also in a coma after being hit by an assailant in a public housing estate, and a South Korean TV reporter was kicked unconscious by assailants in a northern suburb on Saturday.

Youths, in interviews, have boasted that they were intensifying the violence because of a sort of "competition" between gangs from different suburbs to get media attention.

The United States, Britain, Canada and Russia have all warned their citizens against travelling through some of the worst-hit areas of Paris. - AFP