French police marched in protest along Paris' Champs Elysees boulevard to the Interior Ministry on Friday, accusing the government of scapegoating law enforcement agencies as public anger over race discrimination swells.

"The police is not racist... it saves lives whatever the color of the individual's skin," Fabien Vanhemelryck, secretary-general of the Alliance union, told Euronews.

Late on Thursday across the whole country, many other protests have erupted. In the Paris suburb of Bobigny, officers lined up outside a police station and placed their handcuffs on the ground.

In Lyon, police parked their cars around the central Place Bellecour, blue lights flashing.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner sought on Friday to alleviate discontent following a meeting with police unions over changes in police tactics.

"The Minister and the Secretary of State reaffirmed their full support for the challenges and the unacceptable amalgams of which the police are the target," the statement from the Interior Ministry said.

Meanwhile, the union accused President Emmanuel Macron, and his government of showing disrespect after Castaner on Monday pledged "zero tolerance" for racism as he unveiled reforms following protests sparked by the death in the United States of an unarmed black man being restrained by police.

"Colleagues can't take this anymore," Fabien Vanhemelryck of the National Police Alliance told Reuters after Friday's protesters arrived at the front gate of the Interior Ministry.

Regarding the chokehold technique, the ministry said it still considered it as dangerous, adding that police officers can always immobilize a person on the ground to handcuff him using other methods.

Police union vehicles in convoy joining the protest march carrying posters reading "No police, no peace". Another contained graphic images of injuries sustained by police attacked in the line of duty, with the words: "Who is massacring whom?"

On Monday, Castaner claimed the chokehold arrest would no longer be taught in police schools, that a police officer could now be suspended on suspicion of racism and that the use of body cameras would be beefed up.

(With input from agencies)