The French Senate on Saturday approved the country's pension reform plan, despite the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets to protest a significant policy change that could define President Emmanuel Macron's second five-year term.

The upper house of the French Parliament adopted the bill by 195 votes to 112, whose headline measure is lifting the retirement age by two years to 64.

A committee will hammer out a final draft, which will then be sent to the Senate and the National Assembly for a final vote, likely on Thursday, local media reported.