Rioting broke out during May Day rallies in Paris and other cities in the country as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the French Government’s pension reforms.

French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin revealed this morning that 540 people had been arrested yesterday after at least 406 police officers and gendarmes had been wounded with some suffering serious injuries.

Darmanin said the "vast majority" of protests in France were peaceful but claimed that in Paris, Lyon and Nantes "police face extremely violent thugs who have came with one objective, to kill cops and attack the property of others".

"This violence must be condemned without reservation," Darmanin wrote on Twitter.

Darmanin announced that 782,000 people had protested across France, including 112,000 in Paris alone.

Those figures have been disputed by national trade union General Confederation of Labour (CGT) which claimed that there were 2.3 million demonstrators across the country with 550,000 in the capital.

Waves of protests have been taking place in France since the country’s President Emmanuel Macron signed into law a controversial Bill last month to increase the state pension age from 62 to 64.

Macron argues that the measure is necessary to prevent the growing number of older people becoming an increasing tax burden for the next generation, but the move has sparked widespread anger.

"The page is not going to be turned as long as there is no withdrawal of this pension reform," said CGT secretary general Sophie Binet in a report by the French news agency Agence France-Presse.

"The determination to win is intact."

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne slammed the protests that had seen violence erupt in other cities including Lyons, Toulouse and Nantes.

"In many cities in France, this May Day was a moment for responsible mobilisation and commitment," Borne wrote on Twitter.

"The scenes of violence on the sidelines of the demonstrations are all the more unacceptable."

During the clashes, protesters blockaded the entrance to the Paris 2024 Aquatics Centre construction site.

Last month, several French groups opposed to the staging of Paris 2024, due to take place between July 26 and August 11 next year, revealed plans to get people to sign up as "fake volunteers" in a bid to disrupt the Games from the inside.

The "hidden work campaign" has been set up in a bid to "prevent this anti-social enterprise from profiting from the free labour of thousands of people", the activists have said.

French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra has insisted Paris 2024 are in no way the "Government Games" as authorities move to ward off threats by those protesting against the new pension law to disrupt the event.