live from london, this is bbc news. humanitarian organistaions plead with rival military factions in sudan to stick to the latest ceasefire and protect aid workers it is not just the fighting. it is also the general security situation. we've experienced a lot of general lawlessness. it is an extremely volatile and difficult situation to operate in. russia has launched another wave of missile strikes at cities across ukraine — the second such assault in three days. in france traditional may day celebrations are being used for mass demonstrations against the increase in the pension age. these are

pictures right now from paris. you can see police moving in and we will have the latest. and in america first republic has become the third back to collapse in a matter of months and will be bought byjp morgan chase. this is bbc news. let's go straight to paris and you can tell that potentially we have tear been fired and potential disturbances at those protests. we were in paris in the past hour or so and scenes were pretty peaceful. there had been a huge downpour of

rain and perhaps that was behind it. although we are now seeing these pretty dramatic pictures but of course there will be other areas of the protests which are much calmer. but as you can see this is paris and these are live pictures coming in now. and you can see some clashes with police. the reason behind this, in essence it is about emmanuel macron and his pension reforms, increasing the age at which you can claim from 60 to up to 64 but as ever with protest on the scale it is about much more than that. it is about much more than that. it is about a general anger at president macron as his popularity ratings have plummeted of late. and general dissatisfaction also with a range of political grievances in france. and as always in protests and demonstrations like this they seem

to be rolled into one. and we're just these pictures now of riot police with their helmets and shields taking some course of action. it is afternoon in paris and we are expecting a day of protests. and they can go on for some time if history is anything to judge by. they can head on into the evening. we do have teams on the ground there. nick beake is our correspondent to we spoke to earlier and we will be speaking to him again at some stage. we can get more of a flavour of what is happening. in you can see these kind of makeshift... that was an explosion just there. there's that fire in the middle of the street and tricky to see exactly is happening. let's go full screen

for a momentjust to get a better idea of what we can actually see there. we will do thatjust a moment. butjust as the camera moves around we canjust moment. butjust as the camera moves around we can just get a better sense i think of what is going on. and we can go full—screen now to get a sense of what is happening because in these clashes traditionally of course you have a mixture of families and people just out on more traditional protests and then you have at the sharp end people with gas masks and tear gas around. people wearing high vis jackets and as ever with these kind of protests people are filming themselves. so we are due to get plenty more video coming on in the hours ahead of

different parts of this protest and we will be keeping an eye on that and our team we will be keeping an eye on that and ourteam of we will be keeping an eye on that and our team ofjournalists and producers here in london will be verifying the footage in the hours ahead. because of course online in situations like this there tends to be lots of footage, some of it accurate but not all and that is why our teams work so hard to try to make sure that the pictures that we bring you are verified. we will stay with these live pictures for the moment. that was the kind of makeshift fire that we saw just a little earlier on the split screen. you get a better sense with full frame of exactly what is happening. just to remind you that this is not kicking off out of nowhere, this is a very long—running protest against

the changes to the retirement age. but also it is labor day which is a traditional day notjust in france but across the world of people out on the streets part in celebration in part in protest, part strike at times. but clearly this is not much of a celebration. definitely conflicts between protesters and police. let'sjust conflicts between protesters and police. let's just try to listen in for a moment. so we get a bit of a sense of it there with the volume cranked up a bit. and just worth listening and

again, we did hearsome bit. and just worth listening and again, we did hear some chanting. so you get a sense with the drumbeat on the far left of the picture. and there was shouting and chanting as well. just so you know we have different feeds going on right now, this is one shot in the centre of paris but we have another live feed as well. perhaps we can show that as this is also in paris. we do know

actually that there are people out on the streets in other parts of the country and notjust in paris. but clearly the centre of some pretty significant disturbance is the capital right now. this will not have been unexpected, police and authorities would have said some time to plan this because a day like this normally brings people out anyway and also the intensity of the protests we capped a week after week throughout france has been quite a surprise to the authorities to begin with but perhaps now no surprise that we are seeing scenes like this. and it is interesting that once the legal processes and votes or non—vote in parliament over the pension reforms were all finished there was speculation that perhaps now is this reform seem to be done

and dusted, that perhaps there is little reason to come out on the streets any more but clearly that is not the case. people are still furious at the changes and angry at the administration. wanting to show their anger and their voice on the streets and demanding change. that has led to these protests with these police officers here. let's take a look at that other live feed now. this is from a slightly different perspective. i cannot work out the exact location of these feeds we will do a bit of work alight and try to bring some clarity on that. we do have these live camera crews out in the streets of paris. just talking about the popularity of manual

micron that has taken such a hit recently. —— of emmanuel macron. some have suggested that he will not seek another term in office. therefore he is prepared to take the hit to his popularity and push through reforms that he knows will not be popular at all. that is probably an understatement but he's prepared to that hit because he will be not looking for real action. on the other hand of course his legacy and how he will be remembered by people in france undoubtedly right now taking a hit and perhaps the strength of the protest was not part of the initial calculation when the decision was made to push them through. who knows, we will not know until perhaps we hear from through. who knows, we will not know until perhaps we hearfrom him through. who knows, we will not know until perhaps we hear from him after he has left office in his memoirs. but is he very much was that this is simply a matter of economics. the country simply cannot afford with an

ageing population to keep that retirement age at that level. to give you some perspective, retirement age, we do have similar countries in europe with a similar retirement age but the majority had a significantly higher retirement ages of four orfive a significantly higher retirement ages of four or five years higher. and with plans to raise them still further. so it is seen by a kind of international standard that going from 60 to up to 64 is not particularly demanding. but these things are never as simple as that and clearly it is notjust about that two years but about a lot of other technical changes that go with it and frankly many other issues as well. let'sjust it and frankly many other issues as well. let's just take a listen in to see what we can hear.

sirens. we could hear the sirens going. this seems to be some kind of standstill.

you can see on the one side there is very heavily defended riot police and protesters on the other side and it seems that they are effectively keeping separation between the two sides there of protesters with that police line in the middle. and this seems to be an angle from the other side, it seems to be. as i say we will be trying to work out a bit of the geography to try to make things a little bit clearer. but you can see huge numbers. no question of this particular street being under policed. we give you some bangs. no direct conflict right now but as the officers move potentially that is when things could escalate. but thankfully no sign of that right

now. if you're just if you'rejustjoining us if you're justjoining us this is bbc news and we are live on the streets of paris as the protesters that you can see there have been clashing with police. we have seen what we assume is tear gas and people wearing gas masks, protesters pushing up against police and vice versa. but so far no major damage that we can see from this life position. you can see the lines of the officers. but we did see a trolley on fire in the middle of the street a little earlier but from what we've seen so far no significant damage to buildings. you

may remember images from a couple of weeks ago of a restaurant being burned. 0ne weeks ago of a restaurant being burned. one of the favourite restaurants of emmanuel macron and unfortunately we have seen buildings and property set on fire and smashed in previous protests. we have seen a smashed window so far but that is it. as you can see these officers advancing. and we've been staying on these pictures for ten or 15 minutes now. because these pictures are a bit of a contrast to what we have been keeping our eyes across in the past couple of hours in paris. when we were there earlier we had people milling about and it was quiet, it was a wider street and we had no direct conflict going on with everything seeming peaceful and then

came a torrential downpour of rain and usually that is what police are quite thankful for in situations like that because it tends to calm things down and send people home and that means you normally have less trouble and disturbance. so from a policing perspective they were not i'm sure i'm happy to see that rain but that has gone now and we are seeing a greater intensity i suppose now of these preparations by these officers certainly in these police lines. a reminder that this all started weeks ago. protests against pension of emmanuel macron and those protests have not gone away, people have kept coming out on the streets. fury at the increased pension age from 60 to 264. many angry with the

process behind that, we had appeals and it did not follow a more usual vote and people were against that. part of that detail is still being explored so different avenues of anger and people are now coming out on the boulevards to express it. this is in east paris. the team here i telling me this is just north of the bastille. we havejust i telling me this is just north of the bastille. we have just switch from one live picture to the other. and you can see bottles now, plastic bottles or glass bottles being thrown at that police line. shields raised. people wearing helmets and cameras, they tend to be journalists

so whenever you see a line of police with shields like that despite the obvious risks, they do tend to be journalists right at the line capturing the moments. so that is what we are seeing in this life shot. we have another image now to bring you. as you can see this is an elevated shot. place de la republique there and more people around, lots of people there but no clashes with police at that particular location from that view. contrast that to this, though.

so this location is just a bit further south than place de la republique as we showed you earlier. we think this is a bit further south. boulevard voltaire in east paris. and this is where we've seen these confrontations and you can see that fire in the middle of the

street. of course france is pretty used to protests and people coming out on the streets. you may remember the yellow vests protests that lasted a significant amount of time, they would come out every weekend not just in any one particular city but right across the country. what was unusual about the yellow vests movement is it did not have a single cause, it was very loose association of different different grievances. and different aims and despite that it carried on for an awful long time with people coming out to blockade the roads and protesting and demonstrating on the streets. these

protests here not yellow vests, these are protests with a specific target in name at least which is these pension reforms but of course noissueis these pension reforms but of course no issue is singular, we always have nuanced reasons for coming out on the streets of paris. so as we have a bit of a lull as they line up with their shields here perhaps we can cost to take a look at the other live camera because people there seem to be on the move. that is the wide shot. and let's go

to the other live feed now back on street level. people seem to be on the move here. as you can tell we are keeping across three various live feeds that we have direct access to here but also our team in france and in london are also keeping across user generated content which basically means mobile phone clips that people are filming out and about on the streets and we are in the process of verifying those because protests can look similar and people can be deceived and people can put out. it's a video claiming to be one thing when they are not and we have a team here working to establish the verification and validity of those mobile phone clips. so we do not have any of those to bring you right now because they are being checked.

we have fairly good angles covered of these protests. so the unions in paris ahead of this were hoping for a million people to march through towns and cities throughout the day. in events like

this first estimates are difficult to come by and different groups of course have different incentives for increasing to squeezing the numbers reported so always best to treat any numbers or expected numbers with a pinch of salt. but it gives you an idea at least of the scale that they wanted today. very happy with the emmanuel macron administration. —— very unhappy with the emmanuel macron administration. we can see the firecrackers and various bangs if we can just listen in for a second.

we are going to assume that that smoke is tear gas. lots of people in masks. and you may have seen in the past couple of weeks emmanuel macron at various public events not getting at various public events not getting a particularly warm reception. not evenjust in a particularly warm reception. not even just in france, a particularly warm reception. not evenjust in france, he made a visit and he has criticism following him wherever he goes at the moment. it was a level of criticism that he will have anticipated to some extent, he knows that he is not standing again to be president after this so he can afford in a political calculation to take a hit in his

popularity to force through changes that he knows will be unpopular. did you know it would lead to scenes like this for such a long time? clearly we do not know but the calculation is in his mind has been that the french economy simply cannot afford to not do this. it cannot afford to not do this. it cannot afford to leave the retirement age at 62, relatively low in western europe. he has pushed through this increase up to 64 along with other changes of course. but his view is that with france as an ageing population the number of people at work to support the number of pensioners, people's pension pots, the economic growth you would need to sustain an ageing population with things like health care and transport and housing and social

care, that the country is simply not in a position to do nothing and this is the move he decided to take on and the protests he has been hit with have been ferocious and sustained. right on the spectrum from what we are seeing here right now with riot police out on the streets and tear gas and fires in the streets at one extreme right down to the other extreme which is families coming out peacefully protesting and marching wrapped in also with strike days and weekends and public holidays. a whole spectrum of protests and anger against emmanuel macron. notjust on the pension reforms, he is unpopular for other reasons as well. but that is partly inevitable if you are a leader in a democratic country of course, you will always have descent

and critical voices. but this single issue has provided a focal point if you like for allsorts of grievances and people have turned out on the streets week after week after week. and it seems right now that there is no sign of easing. we do not have a proper idea of the numbers of people out on the streets of paris because in the moment it is almost impossible to know. people always come out with estimates beforehand and expect so many hundred thousand to commit the unions according to reuters wanted a million people across the country to come out and voice their anger. but we will not know final numbers until long after the event if we ever do. unions from their point of view on the pension reforms have been telling reuters

again that the money can be found elsewhere. so no one in france denying that money is at the heart of this, that the economics need to balance out and make sense, the president emmanuel macron going for the idea that this pension reform generally is the way to do it for the money can be found elsewhere. that is at the crux, at the height of these protesters out and about. for so many that are such a crucial issue. but for others much more widespread discontent. and as i say we've been watching these pictures now for a good few hours, the initial protest when it was dry was relatively peaceful and there are still huge pockets of protests which are peaceful with people milling around fairly calmly but the other side of that is these pictures with police with shields and men in masks

and tear gas on the streets. this is bbc news. us banking in the spotlight. there republic is rescued byjp morgan after customers withdraw billions over the concern about its future, and a seismic shift in the way that we work, technology will radically change a quarter of alljobs around the world but will it mean a surge of unemployment? a warm welcome to world business report. we will keep a close eye on the protest in paris

and we will try to watch