Thirteen people including 10 French police officers were injured in a car pile-up following a high-speed chase through the streets of Paris.

The driver refused to stop at the request of police in Paris early on Saturday morning, authorities said.

The pursuit, spanning several kilometres, ended with the driver losing control and smashing into a traffic light pole before two police cars tight on his tail crashed into the back of the vehicle, prosecutors said.

The chase was sparked when a driver refused to comply with police orders to stop after they ran a red light at about 5.45am in the 14th district in southern Paris, said police.

“Three police vehicles then set off in pursuit of the vehicle for several kilometres,” the public prosecutor’s office said, adding that they suspected the driver of being intoxicated at the time of the chase.

Police then chased the car in the 15th district before the driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a traffic light pole.

One police car then crashed into the back of the car, before a second police car swiftly followed, shunting the first on top of the suspect’s crashed vehicle.

A witness said they thought the stacked and “embedded cars” were part of a “film shoot in process”, they told Le Parisien.

CCTV showed armed officers emerging from the vehicles after the crash before removing one of the passengers from the car and dragging them to the ground.