Angry Europeans stage their own "Occupy Wall Street"

Oct16, 2011 | sourced Xinhua

ROME (Xinhua) -- The Big Apple residents this Saturday saw a loud echo of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement in where many of their ancestors came, as ever-tightening austerity measures to contain the debt crisis have made life harder across the Europe.

Rome witnessed a turbulent day as protests turned violent in many corners of the city. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse tens of thousands of protesters. Over 70 people were injured in the clashes.

The mood around the San Jiovanni square turned ugly when protesters torch cars and smashed windows. Large columns of smoke could be seen far away from the square.

At least a dozen or so police cars were seen passing through the area.

Witnesses said angry students have torn down railings and advertisement signs by the streets. They armed themselves with the iron bars obtained at the site to force their ways forward.

At the Colosseum, one of the greatest works of Roman architecture, the police went into clashes with protesting students, and the youngsters attacked the policemen with stones.

In London, thousands of people gathered outside St Paul's Cathedral in central London.

The protestors originally planned to assemble in front of St Paul's Cathedral and then march towards the City of London to "occupy" the Square Mile.

Yet the police immediately blockaded all the exits of lanes and streets nearby the Cathedral, leaving protestors stuck inside "walls of policemen."

"Our Streets!", "We have the right to strike!" a lot of protestors shouted, holding up banners with words like "No cuts," "Fight for every job,", "Bankers got bailout We got sold out," etc.

The "Occupy London" website said the movement is aimed at addressing social and economic injustice in Britain and beyond, as "part of a global movement for real democracy."

Tens of thousands of people flooded streets for demonstrations across Germany.

In capital Berlin, the demonstration started from the Alexanderplatz, a major shopping mall in the eastern city, and then targeted the Chancellor's Office and the Federal Parliament. Thousands of people sit in the square between the two buildings.

Police said some 5,000 people attended a gathering in front of the ECB (The European central bank) building in Frankfurt, a major city in Germany and euro zone's financial center.

Although the Netherlands has one of the lowest unemployment rates of Europe and fares economically well, around 1000 people occupied the financial heart of Amsterdam, which symbolizes for the angry Dutch people the social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of corporate money on government.

"I think what we all share is the idea that we have one crisis after the other because the model that we have now is based on greed," former Minister of Culture Ronald Plasterk, who is also participating in this demonstration, told Xinhua.

Protests also took place in nine Portuguese cities, with the largest one in Lisbon involving tens of thousands of people.

Else where in Europe, demonstrators swept cities in Sweden, Finland, Hungary, Belgium, Norway and Greece.

In Brussel, the European Union's capital, more than 6,000 protesters marched all the way from the north station to the Cinquantenaire Park, calling for change and better life.

"Starting from the global financial crisis in 2008, Europe has been living in crisis for three years, and policy makers still cannot come with suitable solutions, thus social crisis comes as no surprise," said Rym Ayadi, senior researcher at the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies.

Still, experts believe that Saturday's march would hardly have any instant, practical results, as many of the protesters had different demands despite their "common anger".