France protests: A photo essay

Riots last night in Amiens, France, left 16 police officers injured, a primary school damaged, and a sports center destroyed. The image of smoldering cars in the street recall the nationwide riots that erupted in France's impoverished suburbs (like Amiens) in 2005.

More from GlobalPost: Amiens: Riots break out in Northern French city

Protests are nothing new to France, a state born in civil disobedience.

Here's a look at the nation's most turbulent moments. 

A burnt car in Amiens, France, after violent clashes between about 100 local youths and 150 police officers on Aug. 14, 2012. (Philippe Hugen AFP/Getty Images). 

Police patrol the Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois on Nov. 2, 2005, after six straight nights of violent unrest. (Thomas Coex AFP/Getty Images).

About 5,000 workers and pilots of France's two state airlines, Air France and domestic subsidiary Air Inter, stage a 24-hour strike on Oct. 26, 1993, at Orly airport. The strike was against pay cuts and 4,000 job cuts. (Vincent Amalvy AFP/Getty Images).  

Student protestors fight with police in the rue Saint-Jacques in Paris on May 6, 1968. Riots and protests that year by over 10 million workers brought the French economy to a halt and rocked the government of General Charles de Gaulle. (AFP/Getty Images).

Algerian emigrants hold their hands on their heads after they were arrested by French police during a brutal police crackdown where dozens of Algerian protesters, some witnesses spoke of 200, were killed by police on Oct. 17, 1961 in Paris.

French President Francois Hollande (R) and French Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault (L) attend the Bastille Day Military Ceremony on July 14, 2012, in Paris. Bastille Day commemorates the storming of the Bastille fortress-prison in Paris on July 14, 1789 — the year of the French Revolution.