Several thousand people took to the streets of Mexico City on Saturday to protest crime, corruption and impunity in a demonstration organised by members of Generation Z, but which ended with strong backing from the country's opposition parties and their older supporters.

The demonstration was mostly peaceful but ended with some young people clashing with the police. Protesters attacked police with stones, fireworks, sticks and chains, grabbing police shields and other equipment.

The capital’s security secretary, Pablo Vazquez, said 120 people were injured, 100 of them police officers. Twenty people were arrested on charges including theft and assault.

"For many hours, this mobilisation proceeded and developed peacefully, until a group of hooded individuals began to commit acts of violence," Vazquez told reporters.

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As with many of the "Gen Z” protests that have sprung up worldwide this year, the march was attended by people from a wide range of age groups.

“We need more security,” said Andres Massa, a 29-year-old business consultant who carried the pirate skull flag that has become a global symbol of Gen Z protests.

Arizbeth Garcia, a 43-year-old physician who joined the protests said she was marching for more funding for the public health system, and for better security, saying that doctors “are also exposed to the insecurity gripping the country, where you can be murdered and nothing happens”.

In the days leading up to Saturday’s protest, Sheinbaum accused right-wing parties of trying to infiltrate the self-styled Gen Z movement, and of using bots on social media to try to increase attendance.

This week some “Gen Z” social media influencers said they no longer backed Saturday’s protests. By contrast, elderly figures including former President Vicente Fox and Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego published messages in support of the protests.

The march included a number of supporters of the recently killed Michoacan Mayor Carlos Manzo, wearing the straw hats that symbolise his political movement.

“The state is dying,” said Rosa Maria Avila, a 65-year-old real estate agent who travelled from the town of Patzcuaro in Michoacan state.

“He was killed because he was a man who was sending officers into the mountains to fight delinquents. He had the guts to confront them,” she said of Manzo.

In several countries this year, members of the demographic group born between the late 1990s and early 2010s have organised protests against inequality, democratic backsliding and corruption.

The largest"Gen Z” protests took place in Nepal in September, following a ban on social media, and led to the resignation of that nation’s prime minister.

A similar wave of youth-led protests in Madagascar after Colonel Michael Randrianirina seized power and was sworn in as president.