More than a million people took to the streets during a day of mass strikes throughout France, the French interior ministry said Thursday evening. Transport, schools and refinery shipments were disrupted as workers walked off the jobs in an attempt to derail President Emmanuel Macron's unpopular pension overhaul. Read our live blog below to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
- More than a million people took to the streets across France to protest against the Macron government’s plans to reform the pension system, of which a proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is among the most controversial. Macron insists the reform is needed to reform a moribund system – but some of the government’s own experts have said the pension system is in relatively good shape and would likely eventually return to a balanced budget even without reforms.
- The interior ministry said some 1.2 people protested across France, 80,000 of them in Paris. Union organisers, however, estimated the number at 2 million, with 400,000 protesting in Paris.
- Mass protests were also seen in cities including Lyon, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nantes and on the French island of Corsica.
- Macron, who was on a visit to Spain on Thursday, told a press conference that the government was determined to press ahead with the reform.
- More than a dozen people were arrested on the sidelines of the protest after members of the anarchist Black Bloc movement threw rubbish bins, bottles and smoke bombs at police.
- Unions have called for new strikes and protests on January 31.
