France's new Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu promised a "profound break" with the past on Wednesday as he faced trying to build a government with enough parliamentary support to pull the country out of a political crisis.

Lecornu's first day on the job coincided with street protests across France in a show of grassroots opposition to President Emmanuel Macron, which resulted in clashes with police, with one protester hospitalised after being tear-gassed.

But the protests, which gathered steam on social media under the "block everything" slogan, had an uneven impact across the country, despite turnout surpassing that of the traditional Labour Day rallies on May 1.

Altogether some 197,000 demonstrators took to the streets, while the some 80,000 officers sent to control them made around 5

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