Newshub Europe Correspondent has revealed she was targeted by rioters saying it was "truly frightening" as the unrest drags into a fifth night.
The unrest was triggered by the death of a 17-year-old boy, identified as Naël, who was shot and killed after being pulled over at a traffic stop in the Parisian suburb town of Nanterre. The officer accused of killing Naël has been arrested on murder charges.
Nahel's death has fed longstanding complaints of discrimination, police violence and systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies - denied by authorities - from rights groups and within the low-income, racially mixed suburbs that ring major French cities.
The unrest has dragged on into a fifth day and saw an arson attack on the wife and children of a Parisian mayor on Monday morning (NZ time). The rioters rammed a car into the family's home before setting it alight.
In total, more than three thousand people have been arrested nationwide.
Newshub Europe Correspondent Lisette Reymer, who is covering the riots in France, told AM on Monday she is finding it "truly frightening".
She revealed to AM co-host Ryan Bridge she was targeted by rioters while she was in her car.
"We were here for the pension riots a couple of months back and it was very, very different to what we're experiencing at the moment," she told AM from Paris.
"In the suburbs, you really don't want to get out of your car. People stare at you, the gangs will look at you in a very intimidating nature. If you get out, they start yelling at you, hissing at you.
"We had a bottle lit on fire and thrown at us in front of our car as we tried to drive by and that was just to survey the scene."
Reymer said her car had nothing to show the rioters they were press but she added in the current not many people are out and about.
"In those environments at the moment, it's pretty obvious who stands out. There are not many people going out into the suburbs who don't live there, so it's either your media or your police officers and we didn't look like police officers. So I would assume the assumption was made that we were press."
Reymer said the rioters have been causing chaos in the streets lighting fire to anything they see.
"We've seen it [petrol] out on the streets as these rioters have been causing utter chaos down the streets, just lighting fire to everything, cars, trucks, buses, a lot of town halls, a lot of schools being targeted, a lot of public buildings being hit by these rioters who just light fire to everything they can see really and obviously the petrol helps immensely with that," she said.
"But just deeply, deeply frightening for people both in the suburbs and in the cities who don't know if their street is going to be the next to be hit."
It has sparked calls from Nahel's grandmother, identified as Nadia by French media, for the violence on the streets to "stop".
"I say to the people who are breaking things up: stop. Don't break windows, don't smash up schools, don't smash up buses. Stop it, they're mums on buses, they're mums walking outside", Nadia told BFM TV.
"We want these young people to be left alone. Nahel is dead. My daughter had just one child, she's lost, it's over, my daughter has no life left. And they made me lose my daughter and my grandson."
Reymer said this could be a "defining moment" in the riots, which she describes as being "utter chaos".
"There has been this ongoing discussion about perhaps these rioters using it as an excuse to just wreak havoc around the city," she said.
"One of the things that are being discussed is these gangs in the different suburbs are now competing with one another to prove who can actually cause the most destruction.
"So that is what's prompted this call from the family tonight for everyone just to please settle down, calm down, because enough pain has been felt here."
