: "Against a Europe of capital -- another world is

Sunday March 17, 7:20 AM

More than 300,000 protest against EU summit

More than 300,000 people marched through the streets of
downtown Barcelona in one of the biggest demonstrations ever
to coincide with a summit of European Union leaders.

Some 50 people were seen being detained as riot police fired tear gas at the end of the
protest to disperse small gangs of anarchists who smashed bank windows with metal
bars along the route of the early-evening march.

Several dozen people were slightly injured in the melee, including at least three press
photographers. Nine people were taken to hospital with light injuries, medical sources
said.

But the bulk of the protest was orderly, in sharp contrast to the violence that has rocked
past EU summits -- particularly in Gothenburg, Sweden last June when the city center
was ravaged and a demonstrator shot and wounded.

Marching behind a banner that declared: "Against a Europe of capital -- another world is
possible," the boisterous demonstrators trooped for almost three hours from Placa de
Catalunya to the Mediterranean harborfront.

They represented a host of causes -- many of them opponents of free-market
globalization, but also large numbers of Catalan and Basque nationalists -- as they moved
forth under a forest of banners and flags.

Organizers estimated the crowd at 300,000 to 500,000 while municipal police said at
least 150,000 had massed in the streets.

Shops along the two-kilometer (one-mile) route drew their shutters though some
department stores and cafes opted to stay open, their doors guarded by police. Two
police helicopters hovered noisily overhead.

Organizers, cheered by a week of largely trouble-free protests, had been hoping for
100,000 participants, even with a big soccer match between Barcelona and Real Madrid
elsewhere in the city.

That match was interrupted by three protesters, two of whom managed to scramble onto
the pitch and chain themselves to one of the goals.

Fans threw objects at them during the seven-minute delay, and all three were arrested.

About 100,000 people turned out Thursday for a boisterous but disciplined march along
much the same route, organized by the mainstream European Trade Union
Confederation.

On Friday, as the two-day summit of EU heads of state and government got under way
at a heavily guarded convention center, 24 people were detained in skirmishes with
baton-wielding police in various parts of the city.

"In terms of participation and reach of our message, the activities of the day by far
exceeded our targets," said the Campaign Against the Europe of Capital, a coalition of
150-odd groups that has been coordinating protests.

Jose Bove, the mustachioed French activist best known for leading an assault on a
McDonald's fast-food outlet in southwest France in August 1999, was in the city for the
march.

"Europe's leaders are implementing policies and directives that only serve the interests of
liberalization and attack the rights of workers," Bove told AFP earlier in the day.

Security was tight throughout the summit with 8,500 police officers -- many bused in
from other parts of Spain -- in the bustling Catalan capital to guard against the double
threat of street riots and Basque terrorist attacks.

Several hundred people also demonstrated Saturday in the streets of the French town of
Perpignan, close to the Spanish border, and planned to join the protesters in Barcelona.

But for a third straight day, Spanish police at the border with France turned back cars
and buses with people whom they suspected were planning to join Saturday's march.

"Some people think that they can do things that do not meet the approval of the vast
majority of the population," said Spanish Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy. "Action had to
be taken."

The EU leaders met at a convention center on the suburban northwest side of the city,
surrounded by police armored cars and chain-link fences. Most if not all were expected
to have left the city before Saturday's late-day march.

The last big anti-globalization protest in Barcelona, in June last year during a World Bank
meeting, led to violent clashes on the streets and a political debate in Spain over police
brutality at demonstrations.