The marches on Sunday where notable in France where the holiday to honour workers was being used as a rallying cry against newly re-elected President Emmanuel Macron.

In Italy, after a two-year pandemic lull, an outdoor mega-concert was set for Rome with rallies and protests in cities across the country. Besides work, peace was an underlying theme with calls for an end to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Italy's three main labour unions were focusing their main rally in the hilltop town of Assisi, a frequent destination for peace protests. This year's slogan is "Working for peace".

"It's a May Day of social and civil commitment for peace and labour," said the head of Italy's CISL union, Daniela Fumarola.

Protests were planned far and wide in Europe, including in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where students and others planned to rally in support of Ukraine as Communists, anarchists and anti-European Union groups held their own gatherings.

In France, the May Day rallies are meant to show Macron the opposition he could face in his second five-year term and to power up against his centrists before June legislative elections.

Opposition parties, notably the far left and far right, are looking to break his government's majority.

In a first, far-right leader Marine Le Pen was absent from her party's traditional wreath-laying at the foot of a statue of Joan of Arc, replaced by the interim president of her National Rally party. Le Pen was defeated by Macron in the runoff of the presidential election, and plans to campaign to keep her seat as a lawmaker.

"I've come to tell the French that the voting isn't over. There is a third round, the legislative elections," said Jordan Bardella, "and it would be unbelievable to leave full power to Emmanuel Macron."

Australian Associated Press