The violence has also moved outside Paris, to the cities of Dijon and Marseilles.
Police made more than 30 arrests as two textile warehouses and a car showroom the the northeast of the capital were torched, along with almost 200 vehicles in Paris.
A firebomb was also reportedly thrown against the wall of a synagogue in the northern suburb of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine.
Gangs of youths from low-income, high-immigration neighbourhoods have been blamed for teh violence.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin held a crisis meeting with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, and also met with a group of suburban youths for over two hours in his office to hear their grievances.
But the violence in the streets has continued, with shots fired at riot police and at least three people, including a handicapped woman, badly burned by Molotov cocktails.
Many of those involvied in teh violence have called for Mr Sarkozy's resignation.
The presidential hopeful's hardline policies aimed at cleaning up the crime-ridden suburbs have led to widespread disaffection, and his description of rioters as "rabble" has stoked their fury.
The riots were sparked on October 27 when two teenagers were electrocuted in a poor suburb north of Paris as they hid in an electrical sub-station, apparently fleeing a police identity check.
de Villepin meets youths
Mr de Villepin pledged to restore order, after criticism that his government has failed to quell teh violence.
He met with a number of youths aged between 18 and 25, including immigrants, students and unemployed, from areas affected by the rioting.
The meeting is part of a series of discussions geared towards establishing how to deal with the suburbs.
Several of those who took part praised the prime minister's initiative.
"We get the impression that we have been heard," said student Anyss, who also told AFP that the leader is "genuinely seeking to deal with the problems."
Riots worsen
Earlier, gangs attacked police and firefighters in defiance of a government vow to crackdown on the violence.
Around 1,300 police officers were mobilised in the north-eastern suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis, while more than 30 people were arrested in the area.
Buses, fire engines and police were stoned and five policemen were reported injured.
Police said more than 160 cars were torched overnight in the Paris region and 33 in the provinces, a day after around 315 vehicles were burnt in the city’s Ile-de-France region.
One of the worst incidents took place at Neuilly-sur-Marne where police vans came under fire from pellet pistols, but nobody was reported hurt.
A fire was started in a primary school in Stains, as police were targeted by a group of 30 to 40 people near a synagogue.
Paris firemen were called to fight a blaze at a carpet warehouse in Aulnay-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis.
Traffic was halted on a suburban commuter line which links Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport after stone-throwing rioters attacked two trains.
Police said several cars in the eastern city of Dijon were set alight, while similar attacks took place in the western Seine-Maritime region and the Bouches-du-Rhone in the south of the country.
President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday called for calm, warning that an escalation would be "dangerous".
Low income suburbs
France has 751 neighbourhoods officially classed as severely disadvantaged, housing a total of five million people, around eight percent of the population.
The recent violence has exposed simmering discontent in those suburbs where African and Muslim immigrants and their French-born children are trapped by poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, crime and poor education and housing.
Unemployment is these areas is often twice the national rate of 10 percent, and per capita incomes 40 percent below the national average.
Thursday night was the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a night traditionally marked by feasts and family get-togethers.