8am: Strikes and streets demonstrations across France enter their sixth day as the protest turned violent and the police make hundreds of arrests.

Police fired teargas to break up demonstrations in the eastern cities of Mulhouse and Montbelliard. There were also reports of trouble in Lyon and Marseille where the piles of uncollected rubbish are creating a stench across the city.

Half of flights to Paris Orly have been grounded and up to a third of flights at France other airports are expected to be disrupted.

The powerful CGT union called for another day of national strike action and protests. The unions are hoping more than three million people turn out.

The focus of the protest is Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the pension age from 65 to 67. A crucial vote is expected later this week in the Senate.

A poll by the Le Parisien newspaper found that 71% of people are sympathetic to the strike.

Fuel shortages are reaching crisis levels, according to our Paris correspondent Lizzy Davies.

Despite the sound and fury of the unions, however, the real worry for the government is the fuel issue. There are now estimated to be around 2,500 of a total 12,500 petrol stations with no petrol; the situation is particularly acute in the west and north-west. Last night the interior ministry issued a statement saying it had put into action a crisis centre to deal with the problems, while seeking to assure people that there will be no serious shortage. Sarkozy, meanwhile, is remaining firm: insisting last night the reform was "essential". He and his ministers are basically just crossing their fingers and hoping the bill makes it through the Senate before things get too bad. They are highly irritated by Socialist senators who are employing every trick in the book to slow down its passage, successfully delaying the key vote that was due tomorrow until Thursday night or Friday. But once it's been passed, the government says the movement will run out of steam. There are already signs of division within the unions about how long they should keep up it for.



8.23am:One of the biggest questions today will be whether the protests will turn violent, as they did- to various extents- yesterday, writes Lizzy Davies.

In the western Parisian suburb of Nanterre, where school children were blocking the local lycée, a group of around 100 masked youths descended on the protest and clashed with riot police on the scene. Cars were burned, rubber bullets fired and around, across France, 290 young people were arrested, police said.



Here's some Ristournetv footage from yesterday's trouble in Nanterrer uploaded to YouTube:

Star sex therapist ...Depardieu at the Montreal World film festival. Photograph: Graham Hughes/AP

8.41am:

The French actor Gerard Depardieu has criticised the strike. Speaking to the French daily Liberation, from Abu Dhabi where he's promoting his latest film, he said: "What's happening in France is ridiculous. It's a manipulation on the part of the unions."

In the film, a comedy by Francois Ozon, Depardieu plays a communist deputy mayor. According to Liberation, Depardieu regards all French politicians as rubbish, except for Sarkozy, "who has dared to do some absolutely incredible things."

8.48am: Le Monde says protesters are going online to explain why they are demonstrating. "Reform means the pauperisation of the French" says one. "Revolted by the lies of the government" says another and a third says "disgusted by social injustice".

8.52am:Half the dustmen in Toulouse have joined the strike this morning, according to another update from Lizzy Davies.

But she wonders whether cracks are forming in the protests movement.

Lizzy Davies byline picture Photograph: Guardian

Despite insistences from the leading CGT union that nobody can predict when or how or if the movement will come to an end, one syndicat (ITALS) has broken ranks and assured its members it will not ask them to down tools once the retirement bill is passed by the Senate.

"If the bill is adopted as it is, we are not going to bring people out into the street for nothing," says Carole Couvert of the CGC. This is the kind of talk Sarkozy is desperate to hear.

She also notes the defiance of Frederic Lefebvre, a spokesman for Sarkozy's UMP party.



Giving in, he said, was "out of the question...because we are determined to carry out our duty. When you're in politics, carrying out your duty gives you a serneity and a strength that noone can stop." In other words, we're right, and we won't budge an inch.

9.08am: A school in Le Mans, northwest France, burned down in the earlier today after an apparent arson attack. Ouest France has the details and a video of the burnt out college.

Reuters says it was unclear if attack was linked to the protests.

9.34am: "The reality doesn't quite match up to what the students and the strikers are declaring," Lizzy Davies tells me, in this Audioboo interview, after she returned from a Paris school that was reported to have been blockaded.

But she adds: "While we have seen a decreased number of people taking part in strikes in the transport and the education sector, the fuel sector is where things are really starting to bite."

9.47am: There have been fresh scuffles in Nanterre according to AP, following trouble yesterday (see 8.23am).



Police have fired tear gas on high school students who were hurling stones and set a car on fire during nationwide strikes and protests against raising the retirement age. A few hundred youths and nearly as many police gathered Tuesday morning in the Paris suburb of Nanterre at a high school that was closed because of clashes the day before. The teens started throwing stones from a bridge, and police responded with tear gas and barricaded the area.

9.57am: A correspondent from Le Monde has some mobile phone pictures of the aftermath of the trouble in Nanterre.

The pictures, uploaded to Twitter, show upturned and burnt out cars, fire crews dousing a vehicle and a smashed bus stop.

Just another violent night in the Parisian suburbs or something more serious?

Firemen extinguish a fire at the Val d'Huisne school in Le Mans, France. Photograph: Stephane Mahe/Reuters

10.04am:

The minister of education, Luc Chatel, has condemned the apparent arson attack on the Val d'Husine college in Le Mans. Pictures of the blaze show the extent of the damage.

Lizzy Davies byline picture Photograph: Guardian

10.19am: I was hoping Lizzy Davies might be able to do a review of the French papers for us, but they are difficult to get of. She writes:

Because of the strike, there are none of the main daily newspapers in Paris kiosques today. Reading the PDF versions online I see this cartoon in Le Parisien of riot police huddling round a van. "What shall we do, boss?" they ask, presumably as protesters circle. "We're not going far from the van in case they come and siphon off our petrol," comes the retort. Touché (as the French would never say).

10.28am: The French education ministry estimates that more than 14% of primary schools have been hit by the strike. Some 379 lycée schools have been disrupted, according to a live blog by Le Parisien. It says this is the highest number since the strikes began.

10.37am: More mobile phone footage of trouble in Nanterre has emerged on YouTube. This shows scores of protesters fleeing from an area where smoke can be seen.

This one shows vehicles burning yesterday as riot police line up.

Joseph Stiglitz: 'Will we seize the opportunity to restore our sense of balance between the market and the state?' Photograph: Martin Argles

10.54am:

The respected US economist Joseph Stiglitz, suggested that US and British citizens should follow the French example by taking to the streets to protest at welfare reforms and austerity measures. In an interview with the magazine Le Point he said: "When I look at France I somehow feel that there may be a more healthy response to get in the street and say 'something's wrong here'."

11.03am: There's been a war words on French radio stations about the protests, according Reuters

"The street has power and it can be more powerful than the government," Olivier Besancenot, a prominent opponent of Sarkozy and leader of the New Anticapitalist Party, said on Radio Monte Carlo. Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie promised to crack down on vandalism in the protests, telling Europe 1 radio: "The right to demonstrate does not mean the right to smash things up."

11.11am: Exxon Mobil told Reuters that fuel deliveries from strategic industry stocks were easing shortages at petrol pumps.

French motorists don't believe it, as they continue to panic buy. This YouTube clip shows a huge queue for a petrol from an Elf garage on a French motorway.

The supplier Total says more than 1,000 of its petrol stations have run out of fuel, according to Le Parisien. Total's French website is currently unavailable.

11.57am:

Here's a round of various reports from around France.

• Nine people were arrested and cars were torched overnight in the south-eastern city of Lyon, according to Le Progress.

• More than 150,000 people have taken to the streets in the south-western city of Toulouse, unions told the regional paper La Depeche. Thousands of people are also demonstrating in Angouleme, it says.

• The port in Marseille, crucial to France's fuel supplies, continues to be blocked.

• The entrance to Bordeaux-Mérignac airport was blocked by 500 protesters, Le Point reports.

• Up to 25,000 people took to the streets of Pau in the south west, Sud Ouest reports.

11.59am: Sarkozy pledged to crack down on "troublemakers" adding that fuel blockades "cannot exist in a democracy" where "there are people who want to work."

Speaking at at a press conference in Deauville, Normandy where he has been in talks with the leaders of Russia and Germany, Sarkozy signalled that he would push ahead with pension reforms.

He insisted it was his "duty" to pass the reforms.

12.17pm: A court building was damaged in Nanterre, according to the news channel TF1. It also has an account of 200 rioters, dressed mainly in hoodies, clashing with police.

French students protest against pension reform in Nice. Photograph: Eric Gaillard/Reuters

12.19pm:

The state funded English language news channel France 24 says more than 260 protests are planned across France today. They include this demo (left) in Nice.

12.38pm:

The live blog of the strike action on French newspaper Le Parisien's website reports that the French interior ministry estimates the number of people striking at 480,000. This compares with 500,000 in the strikes on 12 October, Le Parisien says.

12.49pm: How's this for a post modernist update? The French news site 20 minutes notes in its live blog that that the Guardian is also live blogging the protests (13h16). (He says, disappearing down an echo chamber).

More importantly, it has a useful map of today's protest route through Paris.

1.02pm: The minister of the interior, Brice Hortefeux, says he wants to agree a new way of calculating the size o demonstrations after wildly different estimates from the authorities and the unions.

Here's a case in point in Bordeaux, where unions say 140,000 people are taking part in demonstrations and the police say only 34,000 are involved.

1.19pm: Trendsmap, a site which racks Twitter topics by location, shows how far the protests or "manifestations" are dominating updates today in France.

1.24pm: Around 240,000 people have taken to the streets of Marseille, the CGT union told La Provence.

1.32pm: AP has details of the disruption to the French railway network. It has also been talking to disgruntled passengers.



Many commuters' patience was beginning to wear thin. Only about one in two trains were running on some of the Paris Metro lines, and commuters had to elbow their way onto packed trains. At Paris' Gare Saint Lazare, which serves the French capital's western suburbs and the northwestern Normandy and Brittany regions, commuters waited on crowded platforms for their trains. Only about half of regularly scheduled trains were running out of the station Tuesday. Caroline Mesnard, a 29-year-old teacher said she expected her commute to take about twice as long as usual as it has since last Tuesday's start of the open-ended strike on France's trains. "All I can say is that after eight days, it's beginning to get a bit tiresome," said Mesnard. "I'm really tired, but there's nothing to be done but hang on and wait for this to end."

1.37pm: When there are petrol shortages, someone usually stands to gain. In this case its Belgium garage owners.

They are rubbing their hands with gless as French drivers cross over the border to get petrol, according to La Voix du Nord.

2.05pm: Here's a Guardian video on the unrest in Nanterre and elsewhere.

2.06pm: Videos of protests across France are emerging thick and fast on YouTube.

Here are links to a selection in the following cities:

• Rennes

• Orléans

• Toulouse

• Le Havre

• Caen

• Chartres

• Pau

• Rouen

• Chalons

And they're riding on trackers in Tarbes.

2.27pm: Lizzy Davies reports on bad line from a raucous demo in southern Paris. "It shows no sign of waning," she says above the sound of a loud hailer.

2.33pm: Yet more videos of protests from another crop of French cities have been uploaded to YouTube:

• Lyon

• Bourges

• Paris

• Marseille

• Angers

• St Brieuc

2.51pm: Around 30% of French petrol stations have run out of fuel, according to the French energy minister, Jean-Louis Borloo. He said 4,000 petrol stations out of 13,000 were awaiting fuel supplies, according to Reuters.

But in an effort to stop panic buying the prime minister Francois Fillon claimed that supplies would be back to normal within four or five days following measures to tackle problems caused by refinery strikes.

3.03pm: Here's a summary of the main developments today:

• Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in scores of towns and cities across France to protest against Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reforms. Police and unions differed sharply on estimates of the number of people involved, but YouTube footage in various locations showed the scale and breadth of the demonstrations.

• Violence between police and protesters has continued for another day in some areas. The worst clashes occurred in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, and a school burnt down in Le Mans.

• Sarkozy warned of a crackdown against "troublemakers" and said he had a duty to push ahead with the reforms. A crucial Senate vote on raising the retirement age to 62 has been delayed until later in the week.

• Almost a third of French petrol stations have run out of fuel, as panic buying continues. But the government claims supplies will be back to normal within five days.

• The strikes caused the closures of hundreds of schools, the cancellation of around a third of flights, and continuing disruption to the rail network. But there is an expectation that the protests will fade once the pension reforms are passed in the Senate.

3.17pm: This video purports to capture the moment that teargas was fired at protesters in Nanterre.

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3.22pm: Owni, a digital journalism initiative, has been plotting all the reports of incidents on a colour coded map of France. The various categories include schools, protests, and refineries.

3.31pm: The CGT union reckons 330,000 people took part in the demonstration in Paris today, according to the Le Parisien.

3.39pm: Police in Lyon have arrested 56 people today in the unrest today, according to the news website 20minutes.com. It added that four policeman and one protester suffered minor injuries.

"These abuses are committed by small groups of thugs, acting independently of the national day of action," an official told the site.

3.47pm: Here's video of Sarkozy remarks on the protests and his tough talking on the "rioters". He says: "I will be in touch with the law enforcement forces to ensure that public order is guaranteed."

On pension reforms he adds: "It would be disastrous if I didn't see to it that the pension funds of today and tomorrow were properly financed."

3.56pm: Our picture desk has put together a gallery of images from today.

4.21pm:

France's CGT union says 3.5 million people have taken part in the nationwide street protests today, Reuters is reporting.

However government and police estimates of the size of the protests have tended to be far lower than union figures – in our 1.02pm update the ratio was 1 to 4.

This is Adam Gabbatt taking over from Matt's sterling work.

4.45pm:

Lizzy Davies byline picture Photograph: Guardian

Lizzy Davies has been out speaking to both disgruntled and, erm, gruntled people in France.

For the strikes is Vero Du Cheyron, 51, a social worker with the mentally disabled.

"I am protesting today because this reform is a symbol of a society which always favours the rich and hurts the little people. When the banks go under, the government saves them. But it's not saving us. So I'm fighting for me and for my children. They say that people are living longer so they have to work longer, but they don't say anything about the health problems that come by doing that.

Also, as a woman, the reform will hurt me as we're usually the ones who have to stop work at certain times. I had always planned on retiring at 60, but it looks like that won't be possible anymore."

Against the strikes is Nicolas Sene, 27, restaurant manager.

"I think the French should get up and instead of whining just work a bit harder. I started at 19 and have never stopped. Yesterday I worked a 13 hour day. I think that, as time goes on, we are finding new ways to enable to the body to better resist old age, and I think we're therefore capable of working a bit longer. There are certain industries, mind you, which are tough- mining, or even restauration.

But for people who just sit in offices all day I think they could be made to do a little bit more time. As for me, I'd like to think that as a manager I could carry on as long as I have the lucidity and the strength."

5.10pm:

Here's some good old fashioned vandalism going on amid the strikes in Lyon, courtesy of alexpatton357's YouTube stream. It appears to show a group of youths overturning a Ricoh-sponsored Citroen. As the car lies prone on its side, one of the triumphant young males applies a kick to the roof for good measure. Always nice to see.

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5.29pm:

That's all for today, thanks for reading. We'll have our full news story on todays event up soon on guardian.co.uk.