People started coming to the esplanade on Friday evening to wait for the decision of the Constitutional Council, the correspondent said. Less than an hour after the announcement of the council's decision to approve the reform, the esplanade was filled with protesters, the correspondent noted.
The protesters began firing flares and chanting through loudspeakers, "Rise up, Paris!" and "We're here; the decision is ours!" and singing battle songs.
"This is horrible! [French President Emmanuel] Macron needs to go, he does not stand up for the interests of France. It's the EU that made him push through this pension reform. We need our Frexit [similar to the United Kingdom's Brexit], we need to get our independence back," a retired woman named Sandrine who also came to protest told the correspondent.
Earlier in the day, the French Constitutional Council approved the key article of the pension reform bill, which would gradually raise the age of retirement in France from 62 to 64 years by 2030.
The president is slated to sign the bill within 48 hours, French media reported.
The Constitutional Council's decision marks Macron's victory regarding one of the key reforms introduced by him during his second term as the French president.
On March 16, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that the government had adopted a law on raising the retirement age to 64 by invoking Article 49.3 of the constitution, which allowed the bill to get passed without parliamentary approval. The decision sparked a strong backlash, prompting people to take to the streets across the country.