Around 23,300 people joined the rally across the country, including 5,500 in Paris, estimated the Ministry of Interior.

In the rally, demonstrators also chanted "justice for Adama Traore," a 24-year-old black Frenchman who died four years ago in police custody in Paris.

France's state investigators had dismissed the charge of police brutality in the arrest of Traore, saying that the man died of heart failure due to pre-existing medical conditions.

A new probe, commissioned by Adama Traore's family, said the young man died of asphyxiation due to the arrest technique police officers had used during the operation.

Last Tuesday, some 20,000 people had demonstrated in Paris calling for justice for Traore. "Each fault, each excess" of the police will be "the subject of an investigation, a decision, a penalty," Minister of Interior Christophe Castaner told the parliament on Wednesday.