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"We are looking into the likelihood of a fire being started deliberately," a spokesperson for the gendarmerie told Reuters.

"Tensions between groups broke out, requiring the intervention of the police and the gendarmerie," Vienne regional police said in a statement.

The attackers struck a gendarmerie school near the city's airport but the situation was now "under control", the channel reported.

I was recently shown footage by police at a local gendarmerie of what looked like another pitched battle on a beach at dawn, with riot-shielded police defending themselves against a hail of rocks.

Four mobile gendarmerie squadrons are being deployed as reinforcements, including 15 gendarmes from an elite intervention unit.