Police fired tear gas at protesters on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, where some 7,000 people demonstrated against the government's pension changes in a spontaneous and unplanned rally.
A Reuters reporter saw cobble stones being thrown at the police, who charged to break up groups of protesters.
The demonstration was across the river Seine from parliament, where Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne earlier on Thursday announced her government would push through the reform using a special constitution clause, as her minority government could not get the necessary backing from the opposition conservative Les Republicains party.
The move will ensure the bill raising the retirement age by two years to 64 - which the government says is essential to ensure the pension system does not go bust - is adopted after weeks of protests and fractious debate.
But it also shows President Emmanuel Macron and his government failed to garner a majority in parliament, in a blow to the centrist president and his ability to win support from other parties for further reforms.
Opinion polls show that a vast majority of voters oppose the pension reform, as do trade unions, who say there are other ways to balance the accounts, including taxing the wealthy more.
French unions called for another day of strikes and action against the reform on March 23.
One of Afghanistan's worst earthquakes killed more than 800 people and injured at least 2,800, authorities said on Monday, as helicopters ferried the wounded to hospital after they were plucked from the rubble of homes being combed for survivors.
India's Narendra Modi told Vladimir Putin on Monday that India and Russia stood shoulder to shoulder even in difficult times after the Kremlin chief cast the Indian prime minister as his "dear friend" and gave him a lift in his armoured limousine.
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged leaders to leverage their "mega-scale market", while Russian President Vladimir Putin showed support for Xi's ambition for a new global security and economic order that poses a challenge to the US during a regional summit on Monday.
South Korea has suspended a military radio broadcast that transmits to North Korea as part of measures aimed at easing tensions with Pyongyang, Seoul's defence ministry said on Monday.
Indonesian political parties have agreed to cut lawmakers' benefits, President Prabowo Subianto said on Sunday, in a bid to calm anti-government protests that have killed at least five people in the country's worst violence in decades.
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