PROTESTERS clashed with security forces across France on Monday as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for Labour Day to vent their anger against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform.
Unions had been hoping for a vast turnout nationwide to further rattle Macron, who has been greeted by pot-bashing and jeers as he toured the country seeking to defend the reforms and relaunch his second term.
Macron last month signed a law to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, despite months of strikes against the bill.
At least 108 police were wounded and 291 people detained across France as violence erupted in several cities on the sidelines of the main union-led marches, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters.
In Paris, radical protesters threw projectiles at police and broke windows of businesses such as banks and estate agents, with security forces responding with tear gas and water cannon, AFP correspondents said.
As police sought to disperse the protest at its endpoint, some individuals created a fire that spread to a building and prompted the fire service to intervene.
Police had been given a last-minute go-ahead to use drones as a security measure after a Paris court rejected a petition from rights groups for them not to be used.
