Hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets of some 180 French cities Tuesday to protest plans by President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform the country's pension system, dpa reported.
The Interior Ministry put the number of protesters nationwide at 380,000, while trade unions said some 800,000 took part.
The protests were accompanied by a one-day strike by public sector workers, which affected primarily French railways.
The state railway network SNCF said some two of three scheduled high-speed TGV trains operated Tuesday, as did about one of two scheduled regional and suburban commuter trains.
However, international trains, such as the Eurostar between London and Paris, ran normally.
In addition, the Education Ministry said about one out of three school teachers walked off from their jobs for the day. Unions said that about half of the country's teachers took part in the strike.
The protests and strikes came just one day after Sarkozy sacked his labour minister, Xavier Darcos, following his party's severe electoral defeat in Sunday's regional elections.
The new labour minister, Eric Woerth, will now be entrusted with carrying out the reform to France's pension system, which Sarkozy has targeted as the most important issue of his five-year term.
Meetings between Sarkozy and union leaders to discuss the pension reform were expected to take place later this month and in April.
But some unions emphasized other issues in the strike, such as job security, working conditions and the rising cost of living.
Francois Chereque, the head of the influential CFDT union, said the climate among workers was "explosive" because of rising unemployment and tensions at the workplace.