Police in The Hague arrested 370 demonstrators when they broke up the Extinction Rebellion protest on the A12 highway late on Saturday afternoon, Dutch media reported.

Police began to clear the road shortly after 5pm, when their own protest ended. They are campaigning for a new early retirement scheme and said in advance they would be elsewhere during the afternoon, while the demonstration took place.

It took until around 7pm to clear the road completely so it could reopen to traffic.

Some of the demonstrators, estimated to number around 1,000 in total, had taken tents to the motorway and said they planned to sleep there overnight.

They were protesting at what they call government “subsidies” of up to €46 billion a year for the fossil fuel industry, in the form of tax incentives, government investment schemes and other types of support.