PARIS, 1 May – RIA Novosti. Police in Place Nation in Paris used water cannon to disperse protesters against pension reform, RIA Novosti reporter reported.

After columns of demonstrators, led by representatives of the trade union movement, reached the culmination of the May Day march in Paris’s Place Nation, police tried to clear the square from protesters who continued to clash with law enforcement.

Law enforcement tried to evacuate the people with tear gas, but radical demonstrators continued to attack the police, throwing glass bottles, incendiary mixtures and fireworks.

After that, the police had to disperse the participants of the May Day demonstration, which sparked a riot, with water cannons.

According to the General Trade Union Confederation (CGT), 2.3 million people took part in the demonstrations across the country, of which 550,000 were in Paris. According to the Ministry of the Interior, more than 700,000 people took part in the demonstrations across France, 180 demonstrators were detained, 53 of whom were in Paris.

Leading French unions have called for May 1 to be a day of “unprecedented public action against pension reform and social justice”.

On April 14, the Constitutional Council of France approved a key clause of a pension reform bill that would gradually raise the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030. The same day Macron signed the law, the document was published in the official gazette.

The pension reform triggered a wave of protests across France, accompanied by clashes between demonstrators and police officers, pogroms, riots and detentions.