CNN reporters on the ground also saw police fire rubber bullets.
Police say several thousand protesters, most of them male and dressed in "gilets jaunes," the yellow high-visibility jackets that have become the symbol of the movement, converged on the Champs-Elysees at about 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET) chanting "Down with Macron" and "Calm down police."
Protesters at the front of the demonstration wore a variety of face masks and balaclavas.
Protesters clash with riot police amid tear gas on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on December 8.
Earlier, TV images showed them parading past the flagship stores of some of Paris's best-known luxury brands such as Mont Blanc and Cartier, all with their shutters tightly fastened on what should be a busy shopping day before Christmas.
Anticipating a repeat of last weekend's violence, monuments including the Eiffel Tower and many of the French capital's metro stations remained closed with about 8,000 police on the streets.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe told CNN affiliate BMTV that officers had detained for questioning 481 people as of 11 a.m. local time (5 a.m. ET) and made 211 arrests.
"We have to change the Republic," Ilda, a yellow jacket protester from the south of France near Toulouse, told CNN. "People here are starving. Some people earn just 500 euros a month you can't afford to live. People don't want to stop because we want the President to go."
Patrice, a pensioner from Paris, said he was protesting because of "the government and the taxes and all these problems. We have to survive."
Saturday's demonstration is the fourth in a series of protests that last weekend erupted into the worst riots France had witnessed for decades, with anger largely focused on the performance of French President Emmanuel Macron.
With more riots expected in other parts of the country, Philippe said the government was deploying 89,000 security force members across France.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner vowed Friday to deploy all the means available to ensure the latest protests are not hijacked by what he called "a small minority" who have been "radicalized and fallen into violence and hate."
A yellow vest protester kneels in front of police on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Saturday.
"We have to guarantee the safety of protesters and the right of citizens to move around freely," he told reporters.
The French retail sector has suffered a loss in revenue of about $1.1 billion since the beginning of the yellow vest protests last month, a spokeswoman for the French retail federation, Sophie Amoros, told CNN.
Amid heightened tensions, police seized 28 petrol bombs and three homemade explosive devices Friday at an area blockaded by protesters in Montauban in southern France, a spokesman for the Tarn-et-Garonne prefecture told CNN.
Yellow vest protesters gather near the Arc de Triomphe monument in Paris on Saturday.
On Friday, Paris' public transport operator, RATP, announced on its website that 36 Metro stations would be closed Saturday. It also said 50 bus lines will have limited to no service.
Dominique Moisi, a foreign policy expert at the Paris-based Institut Montaigne and a former Macron campaign adviser, told CNN the French presidency was not only in crisis but that Europe's future also hung in the balance.
"In a few months from now, there will be European elections, and France was supposed to be the carrier of hope and European progress. What happens if it's no longer? If the President is incapacitated to carry that message?" Moisi asked.