PROTESTERS disrupted traffic at the main airport of Paris today and again turned out in large numbers across France during fresh strikes against President Emmanuel Macron’s attack on pension rights.

Mr Macron’s attempt to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 has ignited a firestorm of public anger since the change was proposed in January.

Left-wing union body the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) said that more than 400,000 people had attended the demonstration in Paris.

Newly elected CGT general secretary Sophie Binet spoke of people feeling “a deep anger, a cold anger.”

She blasted Mr Macron’s government as “completely disconnected from the country and completely bunkerised in its ministries,” adding: “We can’t turn the page until the reform is withdrawn.”

On Wednesday, rat catchers in Paris set the tone for today’s protests by hurling rodents’ cadavers at the City Hall.

Natacha Pommet, a leader of the CGT public services branch, said today that the rat catchers had sought “to show the hard reality of their mission.”

Union representative Sylvain Challan Belval said that Mr Macron’s government was simply playing for time and hoping that the protest movement would “blow itself out.”

In Paris, strikers again closed the Eiffel Tower and a banner opposing the retirement age rise was draped on top of the Arc de Triomphe.

Deputy Mayor of Paris and Communist Party spokesman Ian Brossat said that today’s protesters had “the same anger and the same determination to defeat Macron’s disastrous project.”

In Nantes, rumbling tractors joined the protesters as police fired thick clouds of tear gas in a bid to disperse demonstrators.

Police using tear gas was also reported in Lyon and Rennes.

Striking railway workers briefly stormed the former headquarters of the BlackRock investment firm in central Paris.

The unions have vowed to announce further protests.