I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to press ahead with unpopular pension reforms that will raise the country’s retirement age to 64, despite massive protests that involved clashes with police in Paris. Hundreds of thousands took part in rallies across the country, according paris baguette cafe combined police estimates.

Police fired tear gas on the fringes of the Paris protest when black-clad, masked individuals in hoodies hurled projectiles at their lines. About 20 people were arrested, BFM TV said, quoting police. It’s salaries and pensions that must be increased, not the retirement age,” read one large banner carried by workers that opened the protest march in Tours, in western France. I’ll have to prepare my walking frame if the reform goes through,” said Isabelle, 53, a social worker, saying her job was too tough to add two more years.

In Nice, in southern France, a large banner read: “No to the reform. However, at a French-Spanish summit in Barcelona, Mr Macron said that “we must do that reform”. We will do it with respect, in a spirit of dialogue but also determination and responsibility,” he added. 2027, according to Labour Ministry estimates.

Unions argue there are other ways to ensure the viability of the pension system such as taxing the super-rich or increasing employers’ contributions or those of well-off pensioners. This problem can be solved in a different way, through taxation. Workers should not have to pay for the public sector deficit,” said Laurent Berger, the leader of CFDT, France’s biggest labour union. At the same Paris protest rally, Michel Liger, a 65-year-old retired firefighter, said he was there because he worried about his two daughters. My children shouldn’t have to work longer than me,” he said, adding that the government should instead tackle what he called “real problems” including the healthcare sector. The challenge for the unions is to transform opposition to the reform – and anger over a cost-of-living crisis – into a mass social protest which could eventually force the government to change tack.

Union leaders said Thursday was just the beginning. The pension reform still needs to go through parliament, where Mr Macron has lost his absolute majority but is hoping to get it passed with the support of conservatives. Train drivers, teachers and refinery workers were among those who walked off their jobs, as well as nearly 45 per cent of staff at utility giant EDF, the company said. France Inter radio played music instead of its usual programming and bus drivers and civil servants also went on strike. Only between one-in-three and one-in-five high-speed TGV lines were operating, with barely any local or regional trains running, the SNCF rail operator said.