Two people were arrested on the city's famous Place Bellecour square, in the first rioting in a major city centre.

The unrest, which followed more than two weeks of violence in France's poor suburbs, occurred hours before a curfew for minors came into force in Lyon.

In Paris, thousands of police have enforced a ban on public meetings and the situation has remained calm.

The ban will remain in force until Sunday morning.

The trouble in Lyon began at about 1700 (1600 GMT) on Saturday on Place Bellecour, where a large number of riot police were on duty as a preventative measure.

About 50 youths attacked stalls and damaged vehicles, witnesses told Reuters news agency.

Shoppers hurried away from the area and most shopkeepers closed their doors.

Officials in Lyon and 10 towns to the east of the city earlier announced a curfew to bar unaccompanied minors from the streets over the weekend between 2200 (2100 GMT) and 0600 (0500 GMT).

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy blamed the Lyon violence on a "demonstration by anarchists" without elaborating.

Police late on Saturday said the situation across France was so far "much quieter" than the previous night, when a total of 500 car were torched.

Paris curbs

The Paris ban on meetings, imposed under new emergency measures, started at 1000 (0900 GMT) on Saturday and will remain in force until Sunday morning.

The ban prohibits "all meetings likely to start or fuel disorder" and comes after police reports of e-mails and text messages calling for "violent acts" in the city on Saturday.

Security was tight at the Stade de France stadium, in the riot-hit northern suburbs of Paris, for a football match between France and Germany.

Mr Sarkozy has been inspecting police units in the capital, which have been beefed up by at least 2,000 extra officers from outside Paris.

The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Paris says there has been no sign of trouble there.

Either the messages were sheer bravado or the publicity given to them by police has scared potential participants away, our correspondent says.

Several hundred people rallied close to police headquarters in central Paris on Saturday to protest against alleged discrimination against youths of immigrant origin.

"What is happening today in the suburbs is true anger - a 'No' to permanent stigmatisation, to insults and daily acts of discrimination," Mouloud Aounit, secretary general of the Movement of Struggle Against Racism, told the crowd.

The country's unrest was triggered by the deaths in the run-down Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois of two youths, who were accidentally electrocuted at an electricity sub-station.