Paris ? Riot police firing tear gas and brandishing batons clashed Tuesday with bands of youths who shattered windows and looted shops at a major Paris train station, officials said. Nine people were arrested.

Officials said about 100 people were involved in the melee at Gare du Nord, one of Paris’ most important transport hubs. Officers, some with police dogs, fired tear gas and charged at groups of marauding youths, some of them wearing hoods and swinging metal bars.

The youths responded by throwing trash cans and other objects at the officers. A group of youths smashed the windows of a sporting goods store and looted boxes of shoes. Others attacked automatic drink dispensers and set fire to an information booth.

The train lines from Gare du Nord radiate out to the same suburbs north of Paris where three weeks of rioting erupted in 2005. That violence was born of pent-up anger – especially among youths of Arab and African origin – over years of high unemployment and racial inequalities.

The melee spilled onto the surrounding streets late Tuesday as officers cleared the station.