11:48,
YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. French police fired tear gas and fought with what they described as “thugs” in Paris and across France on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched against President Emmanuel Macron's plan to raise the pension age.
The ninth day of nationwide protests, mostly peaceful, disrupted train and air travel, Reuters reports. Teachers were among many professions to walk off the job, days after the government pushed through legislation to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.
Demonstrations in central Paris were generally peaceful, but groups of "Black Bloc" anarchists smashed shop windows, demolished street furniture and ransacked a McDonald's restaurant. Clashes ensued as riot police drove back the anarchists with tear gas and stun grenades.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 149 police officers were injured and 172 people were arrested across the country. Dozens of protesters were also injured, including a woman who lost a thumb in the Normandy town of Rouen.
"There are thugs, often from the far-left, who want to bring down the state and kill police officers," Reuters quoted Darmanin as saying after visiting Paris police headquarters on Thursday night.
Small groups continued to clash with police in Paris late into the night.
Police had also fired tear gas at some protesters in several other cities, including Nantes, and Lorient in the west, Lille in the north, and used water cannon against others in Rennes in the northwest.
Labour unions fear protests could turn more violent if the government does not heed mounting popular anger over pension curbs.
"This is a response to the falsehoods expressed by the president and his incomprehensible stubbornness" Marylise Leon, deputy secretary general of the CFDT union, said.
"The responsibility of this explosive situation lies not with the unions but with the government."
Unions called for regional action over the weekend and new nationwide strikes and protests on March 28, the day Britain's King Charles is due to travel to Bordeaux from Paris by train.
On Wednesday, Macron broke weeks of silence on the new policy, insisting the law would come into force by year end. He compared protests to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.