At least 15 German police officers were injured, one seriously, during rioting that lasted into yesterday morning, following an anti-capitalist protest in Frankfurt, police said.
Demonstrators threw paint bombs at the European Central Bank and attacked emergency vehicles on Saturday in violence which escalated after police tried to arrest several protesters in the heart of Germany’s financial capital.
Battles stretched through the night and one officer was taken to intensive care after being singled out by a handful of demonstrators. Officers who went to his aid were met with massive violence, police said.
Saturday’s clashes mark one of the first significant outbreaks of violence in Germany connected to recent anti-capitalist demonstrations inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Police said they arrested 465 people during the “anti-capitalist day” march. A spokesman for the organisers, anti-capitalist alliance M31, said a group of about 200 protesters broke from the 6,000-strong demonstration and headed to the city centre.
“Frankfurt police intervened during the final part of the march, so we called off the protests. We are not responsible for what happened after that,” the spokesman said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Police put the size of the march at 4,000 people. – (Reuters)