Paris protests: Mayor’s wife and child injured as rioters attack their home

The ongoing protests in France took a violent and disturbing turn overnight, as protesters attempted to set fire to the home of a suburban Paris mayor’s home and fired rockets at the mayor’s fleeing wife and children. 

Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun’s wife suffered a broken leg and a child was also hurt in the attack. The mayor was not home at the time of the attack, which is being treated as attempted murder. 

The suspects in the incident have not yet been identified. 

The attacks used a car to ram through the gates of their home before setting the vehicle on fire so that the fire would spread to the house, the mayor said in a statement. 

When his wife, Melanie Nowak, and their two children, aged five and seven, tried to flee the home, they were attacked with fireworks rockets.

Mayor Jeanbrun called it “a murder attempt of unspeakable cowardice”.

“A line has been crossed,” he said.

“If my priority today is to take care of my family, my determination to protect and serve the Republic is greater than before,” he added.

France has seen violence in the streets following the police killing of a teenager on Tuesday.