PARIS –  A crowd vandalized a Muslim prayer room in Corsica a day after an ambush left firefighters injured on the French island.

The region’s top police official was on the tense scene at a housing project Friday evening.

The violence began Thursday night, when firefighters responding to an emergency call were ambushed in Ajaccio, according to the local France 3 television. On Friday a gathering that started as a show of support for the injured emergency officials turned violent, and some in the crowd vandalized a prayer room. France 3 reported new police reinforcements at other prayer rooms.

France’s prime minister, Manuel Valls, called Friday for respect for French law after “the intolerable aggression toward firefighters and unacceptable profanation of a Muslim place of prayer.”