Thousands have taken to the streets of Berlin and Frankfurt to protest against measures taken to tackle the global financial crisis. "We will not pay for your crisis," was the motto of the campaign supported by the anti-globalization network Attac and including unions and environment groups. Demonstrators said banks must be held to account for the crisis, rather than allowing employees and the world's poor to suffer as a result of the economic downturn.
A speaker for Attac (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens) said roughly 15,000 people had come to the Frankfurt demonstration. Several hundred police officers protected the entrances to office blocks in Germany's banking capital. In Berlin, police estimated that several thousand people were taking part in the protest.
On pamphlets and placards, the demonstrators called for solidarity and an environmentally sustainable global economic system.
The protests came ahead of a meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) leading economies in London on April 2. The marches in Germany echoed a similar event in London on the same day, where thousands of people gathered from around the world to stage a mass protest.
| The footage I saw from London had dudes in blue paint waving Tibetan flags. |