In France, over 1 million people marched on the streets of cities including Paris, Marseille and Nice on Thursday, as labor unions held a nationwide strike against plans by President Emmanuel Macron to raise the age of retirement from 62 to 64. In Paris, more than three dozen people were arrested after police used tear gas to clear protesters from Bastille Square. This is trade union leader Laurent Escure.

Laurent Escure: “We want to have a good retirement. We don’t want to retire broke, tired, broken. We want to enjoy our last years with our children, our grandchildren, maybe with our parents, who have to be taken care of. So it is a message of social justice that we want today. If the government does not come to its senses, there will be more strikes to follow. That is why we appeal to reason and not to make the choice of irresponsibility, and to choose the voice of reason.”