Pictures of the week: Gwyneth Paltrow in court, cherry blossoms and riots in France

The Independent’s picture editors bring you the best photography from all corners of the planet

Protestors look on next to a damaged and burning road sign gantry at the entrance of the "Pont de Saint-Nazaire" (Saint-Nazaire bridge), the longest bridge in France (AFP/Getty)

Each week the picture editors at The Independent sort through hundreds of thousands images sent into us by photography agencies from all around the world.

These are some of the most eye-catching and the most striking images from culture, news, politics, sport and lifestyle.

You can also keep up with the latest photography making headlines via our Instagram.

(AFP/Getty)

Ninots (cardboard figurines) in a 'falla' (a huge ornate cardboard sculpture made to eventually be burnt) burning on the last night of the Fallas Festival in Valencia.

(AFP/Getty)

A vendor selling ice cream waits for customers at the Galle Face Beach in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

(EPA)

Leeches suck blood from a woman's face during a leech therapy session on a roadside in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India.

(AFP/Getty)

Supporters of former US President Donald Trump protest near Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

(AFP/Getty)

Thousands of bottles of alcoholic beverages are destroyed in Pekanbaru, Indonesia.

(PA)

Surfers and kayakers ride a 'four-star' Severn Bore at Minsterworth, Gloucestershire.

(Reuters)

Girls feed sparrows and take photos in front of cherry blossom trees at Ueno park, in Tokyo, Japan.

(Reuters)

Actor Gwyneth Paltrow looks on before leaving the courtroom where she is accused in a lawsuit of crashing into a skier during a 2016 family ski vacation, leaving him with brain damage and four broken ribs, in Park City, Utah.

(Reuters)

Orchards sit in floodwaters from the Tule River inundate the area after days of heavy rain in Corcoran, California, US.

(AFP/Getty)

Emergency teams attend the scene after a ship, the research vessel the 'Petrel', tipped over at a 45-degree angle in the Imperial Dock area in Leith, Scotland.

(ALL ABOUT LAPLAND/AFP/Getty)

Colourful northern lights (Aurora borealis) appearing around the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi, Finland.

(EPA)

Nepalese students write a farewell message on each other's school uniform during the last day of their schooling at Shree Shanti Vidhya Griha secondary school in Kathmandu, Nepal.

(PA)

Tjeerd Bakker, Senior Horological Conservator at Buckingham Palace, changes the time on a wall clock 1838 by Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy (1780-1854) made from Marble, gilt, blued steel in the Grand Entrance & Marble Hall at Buckingham Palace in London, in preparation for moving forward an hour to British Summer Time (BST) on Sunday.

(Reuters)

A tower of Abu Dhabi Plaza sticks out of a blanket of thick fog in Astana, Kazakhstan.

(PA)

The Milky Way core rises at 3.00am over Bamburgh Lighthouse in Northumberland on the North East coast of England.

(Reuters)

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy poses for a picture with Ukrainian service members at a position near a frontline, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine.

(PA)

Boris Johnson giving evidence to the Privileges Committee at the House of Commons, London.

(EPA)

A Supporters of Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) gets thrown into the air by his friends as they shout slogans during a rally as part of Nowruz (Newroz), or Kurdish New Year, celebrations in Diyarbakir, Turkey.

(Reuters)

Muslims attend Friday prayer on the first day of Ramadan at Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

(AP)

Water buffaloes swim near the Nihran Bin Omar oil field north of Basra, Iraq.

(AFP/Getty)

A worker dries vermicelli, which is used to make traditional sweet dishes popularly consumed during the holy month of Ramadan, at a factory in Prayagraj.

(AFP/Getty)

The crescent moon and Venus are pictured in Bangkok following a lunar occultation of the second planet from the sun.

(AFP/Getty)

A man sits on the banks of river Yamuna coated with polluted foam in New Delhi.

(Reuters)

A SUV is piled into the ground in front of Berlin's landmark Brandenburg Gate during a protest "stop crashing the climate" by Greenpeace in Berlin, Germany.

(AP)

A tree stands in a lake in Usingen near Frankfurt, Germany. World Water Day was established in 1992 by the United Nations to spread awareness about the water condition all over the world.

(AFP/Getty)

People looking at crabapple blossoms in Guiyang, in China's southwestern Guizhou province.

(AFP/Getty)

France's Camille Kovalev and Pavel Kovalev compete during the pairs - free skating at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama.

(PA)

Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Rwandan minister for foreign affairs and international co-operation, Vincent Biruta sign an enhanced partnership deal in Kigali, during her visit to Rwanda.

(AP)

A washerman washes clothes on the banks of the river Brahmaputra on World Water Day in Guwahati, India.

(AFP/Getty)

French Republican Security Corps (CRS - Compagnies Republicaines de Securite) police officers in riot gear clash with a protestor during a demonstration in Toulouse, southwestern France.

(AFP/Getty)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping leave after a reception following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow.

(EPA)

People in traditional clothes take part in a procession to celebrate the Gudi Padwa, Maharashtrian's New Year in Mumbai, India.

(AFP/Getty)

Ukrainian servicemen fire with a S60 anti-aircraft gun at Russian positions near Bachmut.