WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s centrist government deployed riot police at the country’s Constitutional Tribunal late Friday, amid an escalating confrontation between the prime minister, the president and allies of the previous right-wing government.

The police intervention followed an effort Friday by a group of government-backed judges to take control of the tribunal, the nation’s top court, from its chief justice, who is aligned with the previous government of Law and Justice, a hard-right nationalist party.

Ever since its election in 2022, the centrist coalition government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been feuding with Law and Justice, which lost power in that vote.…