Paris ? Workers opposed to a higher retirement age blocked roads to airports around France on Wednesday, leaving passengers in Paris dragging suitcases on foot along an emergency breakdown lane.

Outside the capital, hooded youths smashed store windows amid clouds of tear gas.

Riot police in black body armor forced striking workers away from blocked fuel depots in western France, restoring gasoline to areas where pumps were dry after weeks of protests over the government proposal raising the age from 60 to 62.

Riot officers in the Paris suburb of Nanterre and the southeastern city of Lyon sprayed tear gas but appeared unable to stop the violence.

Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said both the strikes and the violence were taking an economic toll.

“I’m calling on people to be responsible, in particular those who are having a roaring time blocking access and breaking things,” she said in an interview with TF1 television. “It’s serious for our country.”

After months of largely peaceful disruptions, some protests erupted into scattered violence this week over the government’s push to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed that his conservative party would pass the reform in a Senate vote expected today.

Many workers feel the change would be a first step in eroding France’s social benefits — which include long vacations, contracts that make it hard for employers to lay off workers and a state-subsidized health care system — in favor of “American-style capitalism.”

Sarkozy ordered all fuel depots forcibly reopened and vowed Wednesday that he would “carry the retirement reform through to the end.” And despite France’s tolerance for a long tradition of strikes and protest, official patience appeared to be waning after weeks of actions that have snarled traffic, canceled flights and dwindling gasoline supplies and, now, rising urban violence.