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Protest march against pension reform leads to serious unrest in France’s Lyon

Clashes between law enforcement officers and protesters also broke out in the city of Nantes, where protesters broke the windows of an administrative tribunal building and set fire to trash cans in front of a medical school building

© AP Photo/Thomas Padilla

LYON /France/, March 28. /TASS/. Radical demonstrators started riots during a protest march against pension reform in France's third-most populous city of Lyon on Tuesday.

According to a TASS correspondent, police were forced to use tear gas after an unruly group of demonstrators had started to shatter the windows of banks and shops along the march’s route. The vandals attacked police officers with stones, empty bottles and firecrackers.

Clashes between law enforcement officers and protesters also broke out in the city of Nantes, where protesters broke the windows of an administrative tribunal building and set fire to trash cans in front of a medical school building. A car was also set on fire. Firefighters, working under police protection, had to intervene urgently to prevent the fire from spreading.

The reform, which raises the age of retirement from 62 to 64 and abolishes a number of special pension programs in order to ensure the financial stability of the country’s social security system, was introduced in January. The proposed changes immediately sparked numerous protests. March 28 is the tenth day of labor unions’ protests against the government’s plan.

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