Protesters shot fireworks at police and set cars ablaze in the working class Paris suburb of Nanterre on Wednesday, in a second night of unrest following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy during a traffic stop there.

The use of lethal force by officers against the teenager, who was of North African origin, has fed into a deep-rooted perception of police brutality in the ethnically diverse suburbs of France's biggest cities.

Shortly before midnight, a trail of overturned vehicles burned as fireworks fizzed at police lines on Nanterre's Avenue Pablo Picasso.

Police clashed with protesters in the northern city of Lille and in Toulouse in the southwest and there was also unrest in Amiens, Dijon and the Essonne administrative department south of the French capital, a police spokesman said.

French media reported incidents in numerous other locations across the greater Paris region. Videos on social media showed dozens of fireworks being directed at the Montreuil town hall, on the eastern edge of Paris.

Earlier, President Emmanuel Macron called the shooting "unexplainable and inexcusable."

A police officer is being investigated for voluntary homicide for shooting the youth. Prosecutors say he failed to comply with an order to stop his car.

The Interior Ministry has called for calm, and said 2,000 police have been mobilized in the Paris region.

Rights groups allege systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies in France, a charge Macron has previously denied.

Tuesday's killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023, down from a record 13 last year, a spokesperson for the national police said.

There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, according to a Reuters tally, which shows the majority of victims since 2017 were Black or of Arab origin.

France's human rights ombudsman has opened an inquiry into the death, the sixth such inquiry into similar incidents in 2022 and 2023.