“We are very close (to Paris) because it is a difficult situation for the French government to manage,” Crosetto said on the sidelines of the Fenix youth festival.

“We hope that it ends because the violence that has broken out, and which is not just hitting France and its institutions, but also many French citizens, is not acceptable.”

Crosetto said there is fear all over France.

“From the outside you can only watch and hope that it stops.

“But this must be a lesson to us because I think that the inequalities that have developed over the last 20 years should be addressed in a serious way.

“I think that Europe should address the issue too.”

Rioters, meanwhile, have ram-raided the home of a Paris suburb mayor, set the car alight and launched fireworks at his wife and young children as they fled during the fifth night of nationwide unrest.

Vincent Jeanbrun, 39, the centre-right mayor of the southern suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses, was at the town hall when his house was attacked with his wife Melanie and children asleep inside.

The aggressors drove their vehicle at the suburban house but were halted by a low wall ringing the property’s outdoor terrace, the local public prosecutor said. They then torched their vehicle.

As Jeanbrun’s wife and children, aged five and seven, took flight through the back yard, they were targeted with fireworks.

Jeanbrun told Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne his wife had had surgery to a broken leg and faced a three-month rehabilitation.

Rioting across France has been less intense overnight, as tens of thousands of police were deployed following the funeral of the teenager of North African descent.

The government poured 45,000 police onto the streets to keep a lid on things after Saturday’s funeral of Nahel, a 17-year-old with Algerian and Moroccan parents, who was shot during a traffic stop on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

Since then rioters have torched cars and looted stores, but also targeted town halls, police stations and schools - buildings that represent the French state.

Nahel’s death has fed longstanding complaints of police violence and systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies from rights groups and within the low-income, racially mixed suburbs that ring major cities in France. Authorities deny that.

ANSA & AAP