GERMANY, May 1 — Nearly a half million people marched on May Day in many cities for workers’ demands while confronting and blocking neo-Nazi demonstrations protected by hundreds of cops.
In Berlin, up to 10,000 marchers blockaded the Nazis, stopping the latter’s march after 500 yards of a planned 3.5-mile parade.
In Hamburg, May Day demonstrators hurled stones and bottles at cops trying to stop their march; 13 cops were injured. One May Day banner read in part, “Class Struggle….For a world without crises, war and capitalism.”
In Munich, left-wing-led marchers called for the overthrow of capitalism. “We don’t want to waste 40 or more hours a week…in capitalist modes of production,” said one speaker.
In Erfurt, 2,000 workers stopped 450 neo-Nazis who were unable to march more than a few hundred yards.
In Bremen, two police cars were burned by marchers angry at the cops for protecting the neo-Nazis.
ATHENS, May 1 — “Those that robbed us must pay!” chanted thousands of May Day marchers demonstrating against the austerity imposed by Greece’s ruling class following orders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Overall 20,000 marched, with many rank-and-file workers pressing for the unions to call a general strike to protest having to pay for the bosses’ financial crisis, manipulated by none other than Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs.
In Athens, dozens of youth armed with sticks attacked riot cops protecting the Finance Ministry. In Salonica, street fighting erupted when the cops tear-gassed youth who were smashing the windows of banks. In Piraeus, seamen blocked the harbor, after the IMF demanded the closing of several hospitals. The working class in Greece is up in arms against an “ailing system,” only needing communist leadership to overthrow that system.
PARIS, May 1 — Over 350,000 marched on May Day in 284 cities throughout the country, 45,000 in this city, mostly for economic demands of jobs, higher wages and no change in retirement, denouncing the bosses’ attempts to shift their economic crisis onto workers’ backs. Many of the demonstrations expressed solidarity with the working class in Greece.