An astonishing video of uniformed firefighters and elite riot police meeting for an apparently pre-arranged fight have emerged in France.
The images show the two rival groups confronting each other on a council estate in north east Paris on Tuesday.
The armed CRS, for police Republican Security Companies, wear full body armour and carry shields and batons, while their opponents were distinctive silver helmets.
After a charge by the CRS, there is hand-to-hand fighting, before the police throw tear gas grenades.
It followed disturbances earlier in the day during a march by the firefighters, who were on the street calling for better pay and working conditions.
"The firefighters had been roughed about by the CRS and were not happy about it," said a witness.
"A group of them pulled away from the main body of demonstrators and there confrontation with a CRS unit that seemed to be pre-arranged.
"Things got very violent, and the confrontation was only broken up when the CRS started throwing tear gas grenades."
The video of the trouble was posted by the independent news outlet Hors Zone Press on Twitter.
Earlier in the day, there had been fighting on the main route of the protest march, which was between Republique and Nation squares.
Some of the protesting firemen even set themselves on fire, before the flames were extinguished by colleagues.
There have been street protests and strikes in France for the past six weeks in protests against new pension reforms being introduced by President Emmanuel Macron’s government.
The so-called Yellow Vests, demonstrators named after their trademark fluorescent motoring jackets, have also been on the street since November 2018.
They started off complaining about rising fuel charges, but are now a mass movement who want Mr Macron to resign.
Mr Macron came to power in 2017, pledging to shrink France’s public services, and to make the private sector more competitive.
But the former merchant banker is now frequently referred to as the ‘President of the Rich’ who is mainly on the side of big business.
