French police fired teargas and clashed with demonstrators in Paris and other cities on Monday after trade unions transformed their traditional Labour Day marches into anti-government demonstrations against the rise in the retirement age, reports The Guardian.
In Paris, the trade union-led demonstration began peacefully with many families joining in, holding banners calling for social justice and demanding Macron resign or withdraw his law to raise the minimum eligible pension age from 62 to 64.
But on the edges of the march as it passed through Paris’s 11th arrondissement, police fired teargas and clashed with groups of young men dressed in black. Projectiles, bins and petrol bombs were thrown at police. One officer was seriously injured by a petrol bomb and treated in hospital for burns.
Some Paris bus stops and shop fronts were smashed and graffitied with anti-police slogans. As the march reached its end point at Place de la Nation, police fired teargas and pushed back crowds as demonstrators threw projectiles.
There were 180 arrests across France by 5pm, with 53 in Paris.