Over one million march in France in pension protests

More than one million people demonstrated against raising the retirement age in France, the country's Interior Ministry has said. 

According to the General Confederation of Labour, more than 3.5 million people took part in the protests, the French newspaper Le Parisien reports.

In particular, the French Interior Ministry counted 119,000 protesters in Paris, while the Confederation claimed 800,000 protesters on the streets of the capital.

The publication notes that at least 123 policemen and gendarmes were injured during the demonstrations.

Mass street protests against pension reform have been taking place in France since the end of January.  French President Emmanuel Macron said that in order to maintain the same standard of living and receive pensions against the background of the crisis, the French will have to work more. The pension reform project assumes a gradual increase in the retirement age from 62 to 65 years by 2031. The leader of the faction of the right-wing National Unification party in the French parliament, Marine Le Pen, warned that the French government had created conditions for a "social explosion" among citizens.