Paris, May 19 (RHC)-- French demonstrators have set ablaze a police car in the capital, Paris, in a move to vent their outrage at police violence exercised against opponents of the contentious government-proposed labor reforms.

The car was set on fire in a central Paris street a few hundred meters from where law enforcement officers were holding a rally to express their frustration with near daily clashes with what they called 'violent gangs' on the fringes of labor protests.

Witnesses and officials said three officers escaped the vehicle when a smoke bomb was thrown inside by people who were chanting “police everywhere, justice nowhere.”  The officers were said to be shocked but not seriously injured.

Denouncing what it described as mounting “anti-cop hatred,” French police staged rallies in around 60 towns and cities across France with the Paris event taking place in the Place de la Republique.  French protesters complaining of police brutality were prohibited from staging a counter-demonstration at the site where the police march was underway.

Some 300 counter-protesters arrived shouting slogans such as, “Cops, pigs, assassins” and “Everyone detests the police.”  The demonstrators, however, were pushed back by riot police using tear gas.