This year, France experienced 283 protest rallies on Labour Day in cities from Marseilles to Bordeaux, Grenoble and Paris. Although not as dramatic as 1968, the estimate by one of France’s largest trades unions of 1.2 million protesters was five times higher than the protests in May 2008.

In addition, compared to 1968, the 2009 Labour Day protests were more widespread throughout Europe. On 1 May in Germany, union leaders estimated 484,000 people demonstrated in 400 rallies across the country. In Berlin, 237 police were injured after running battles with stone-throwing activists, leading to 289 demonstrators being arrested and five cars torched. In Istanbul, more than 100 protesters were arrested and dozens of people injured as supermarkets and banks were deliberately targeted. In Athens, rioting was dispersed by tear gas, and in Linz in Austria, 20 people were injured and five arrested.

This violence was unrepresentative of the majority of peaceful demonstrations that occurred on 1 May, which is a traditional day of socialist, worker and union-led protests. Nonetheless, the geographic spread of the violence and diversity of motivations behind it reflected an underlying trend: revolutionary and protest movements have become more active across Europe amid the global economic downturn.

This was annualization for 009 of last quarter of 008. but the Great Recession is gathering momentum and will end up be even worse than that. Germany and Italy will be whacked. The UK is spiralling down the drain, Starbucks top asshole sez.  Steinbrueck said Germany would do wot it takes to keep Ireland in the euro. Ukraine and Eastern Europe hang on a thread before financial ruin strikes and pulls Austria with them into the abyss. Wall Street and the City days are gone. They were the Twin Towers of global finance. A new world has opened up, so forget about your bad banks with our good money. You bankers are the only ones that should be fired. If you say it’s socialism, then let the socialists do it. Nationalization will have to mean socialization. We have to make’em pay. But this means keeping up the temperature in the streets and focus the minds. We have to make’em pay. Not only because it’s moral and it’s our right. But because it is a major demand solution to a major demand crisis. Give money and power back to the people. They’ll spend it and make it work much better than Madoff and the dumbsters that assisted him could ever do. Since GreatRecession endorses MayDay, consider the following exclusive preview this blog’s small contribution to the ongoing generalized agitation vs business and political élites in Europe, America, Asia.
ciao & solidarity vs precarity!

****MAYDAY 2009****

To All Those Who Fight 4: Anarchy, Autonomy, Ecology, Queerness

To all media activists, creative workers, radical artists, union
organizers, immigrant and precarious youth

In 2009, as millions are made unemployed by stupidity and greed, we
call onto all insurgent people and networks out there to unite on the
1st of May for a global MAYDAY against financial capitalism and state
repression, and for social redistribution and self-emancipation.

MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, THE FIRST OF MAY WE’LL MAKE U PAY!

YOU, the financial and political élites, we’ll make YOU pay for your crisis.

The economic and moral collapse of capitalism is for all to see. But it’s us who’s paying for the crisis with our money and jobs. They’re robbing us blind! States are throwing trillions at bankers, while jobs, wages, incomes, services are savagely cut, and millions are thrown into poverty.

We can fight and reverse this process. The Great Recession, the biggest crisis of capitalism in 80 years, opens up opportunities for social conflict and radical transformation.

We the Precarious, We the Unemployed, We the Immigrants, We the Antiracist, We the Antiauthoritarians, we are already fighting together from Athens to Reykjavik, from Capetown to Gaza, from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, from Melbourne to Tokyo, from Shanghai to Mumbai, and across all seas and states where migrants risk their lives and freedom, in all the cities where dissident and discriminated people are fighting for social equality, autonomous culture, a better life.

Let’s unite in an ideal world brotherhood all our actions and demonstrations on the 1st of may in all the cities large and small around the globe. Let’s make our states and corporations know that at least on that day we are ONE against their capitalist crisis that threatens us all.

Let’s make’em pay on the 1st of May (and of course in the coming months in London, Berlin, Strasbourg, and in all the demos, strikes, riots across the planet).

We’ll try to do our bit. Let’s link our networks and associations for a common creative and rageful celebration of the global day of the exploited and the excluded. Let us know on movement lists that you
care about a common mayday. Maybe you thought of this already!

euromayday network
www.euromayday.org
MayDay? for us, it’s a pink, black, red, green thing…