Sharjah24 - AFP: In protest of President Emmanuel Macron's proposed pension reform, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in France on Saturday. Unions threatened to intensify their strikes if the proposal was not abandoned.

Unlike on the three previous protest days there was no call for a day of nationwide strikes, although air traffic controllers at Paris' second airport staged a surprise walkout that left half of flights cancelled.

Macron and his government face a double battle to raise the pension age from 62 to 64, overcoming resistance on the streets as well as pushing the legislation through parliament.

The CGT union said 500,000 people protested in Paris alone, and over 2.5 million nationwide.

The interior ministry, which generally gives much lower numbers, said there were 963,000 protesters nationwide and 93,000 in Paris.

The figures were somewhat higher than on the last day of action on February 7 but possibly also short of the mammoth weekend turnout some had hoped for.

There were protests in other French cities up and down the country, with images on television showing police using water cannons in the western city of Rennes.

Protesters in the French capital took the traditional protest route from Republique Square to Nation Square, behind a banner saying: "No to working longer!"

There were tensions when a car and a bin were overturned and set on fire, prompting shield-wielding police and the fire brigade to intervene.