French students clash with police during strikes

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. It was not immediately clear if there were injuries or arrests.

Strikes over the government's plans to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60 have disrupted daily life and a wide swath of industry - from oil refining to travel to shipping - as protesters fight a proposal they say tampers with the near-sacred French social contract.