RIOT police fired water cannon and tear gas on a mass march against President Park Geun Hye’s conservative government through Seoul yesterday, arresting scores of people.

Trade unions, farmers’ associations and other groups had rallied 70,000 people to demand Ms Park’s resignation and an end to redundancies.

Clashes erupted when protesters tried to move buses parked by police as barricades across the protest route.

Korea Peasants League secretary-general Cho Byung Ok said an elderly farmer, Baek Nam Gi, remained unconscious in hospital yesterday evening after being knocked down by a water cannon jet near the City Hall.

Video footage showed Mr Baek lying motionless as other demonstrators struggled to drag him away and police continued to hose them with water cannon.

Opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy spokesman Kim Sung Soo criticised the “excessively violent” police suppression of the protest, which he said was responsible for Mr Baek’s injury.

Police said they had arrested 51 people and may round up more in a crackdown on protest organisers.

They were marching against plans to allow firms to lay off staff more easily, which the government claims will improve prospects for young workers.

Demonstrators also opposed the imposition of as yet unpublished history textbooks on secondary schools from 2017, fearing that they will whitewash South Korea’s decades of military dictatorship.

Ms Park is the daughter of dictator Park Chung Hee, who came to power in a 1961 military coup and ruled until his assassination in 1971.