France is set for one of its biggest nationwide strikes on Thursday, with both transport and education workers staging mass walkouts in response to French President Emmanuel Macron's plans to overhaul the nation's pension system.

Many air traffic controllers will join the walk-out, with Air France cancelling 30 percent of its internal routes and British budget airline easyJet scrapping 223 international and domestic flights.

Some 90 percent of the country's TVG high-speed trains will be also be cancelled, alongside a shutdown of much of the Paris metro system. International services such as the Eurostar and Thalys will face severe disruption.

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has said he expects around 55 percent of the country's teaching staff to join the strike action, with only 30 percent of the republic's schools set to be open on Thursday.

The strike is open-ended and could potentially sprawl over several days, with parallels being drawn with France's nationwide industrial action of 1995, when much of the country came to a standstill.

Speaking from the UK during the 2019 Nato Summit, Macron said he would not comment on domestic matters while at the conference. However, the planned industrial action has put pressure on the French leader, whose 2017 election campaign centered on his pledge to bring pro-business reforms to France's labor laws.

The French president has called for a "universal" retirement system, which for workers in 42 "special regimes" - including rail, energy, and France's legal system - would see an end to early retirement and cuts to pensions.

Unions have also said that under the proposed legislation, millions of private-sector workers would have to stay in employment beyond the current legal retirement age of 62 to get the pension they had expected. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who is set to make the details of the pension reforms public on 12 December, has said that French workers will have to work longer under the new legislation.

Some 245 demonstrations opposing the proposed legislation are set to take place around the country, according to Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. There are concerns that in the wake of the year-long Yellow Vest demonstrations, violence could break out during the actions.

"We know there will be lots of people in these protests and we know the risks. I have requested that systematically when there is rioting or violence we make arrests immediately," he said.

Some 6,000 members of the France's security forces will be in Paris on Thursday in preparation for the planned demonstrations.