Riot police working overtime as unions & anarchists link arms for May Day 1/2 mil in Germany [View All]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6207808.ece

Protesters turned traditional May Day demonstrations into a rallying call against global capitalism as unrest spread through city streets across Europe yesterday.

Politicians in Germany and France had been warning that the financial crisis was about to spark social unrest. In some towns the words became reality, even if the skirmishes and petrol bombings felt choreographed.

“We want social disturbances, upheaval, and we will do everything towards that end,” said Markus Bernhardt, a spokesman for Class Struggle Bloc, which helped to steer the riots. “The system is violent and now violence is being met by violence.”

Unions estimated that 484,000 people took part in 400 protests across Germany. Riots in Berlin began on Thursday night when cars and rubbish containers were set alight. On May Day morning 700 anarchists blocked a railway station in an attempt to sabotage a neo-Nazi march.

A force of 5,000 German police officers found it difficult to contain the rioting. Officials said 48 officers were hurt and 57 people detained. “One can only advise drivers not to park their cars on the street,” Dieter Glietsch, the head of the Berlin police, said



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German May Day Rallies Draw 485,000 - Unions


BERLIN (AFP)--Peaceful May Day rallies drew nearly half a million people across Germany on Friday, unions said, but police were bracing for clashes with and between far-right and far-left groups after nightfall.

With Europe's largest economy suffering its deepest slump since World War II, almost 485,000 took part in over 400 Labour Day gatherings in towns and cities across the country, the DGB union federation said.

Violence is a regular feature of May 1 in Germany, however, and police nationwide were bracing for more running battles after clashes in the early hours in Berlin and Hamburg and during the day on Friday in Dortmund.

In Dortmund, some 200 far-right extremists used with sticks and stones to attack a rally organized by trade unions. They also fought with police, who dispersed the skinheads with truncheons and took 150 into custody.