FRANCE: Police attack anti-G8 protesters

BY DOUG LORIMER

The French government mobilised 16,500 troops and police in and around the small resort town of Evian, on the southern bank of Lake Geneva, to suppress protests against the June 1-3 G8 summit.

While central Geneva, 42 kilometres south-east of Evian, had been cordoned off for all but police cars, small groups of masked youth were able to penetrate the cordons and on the evening of May 31 deliberately broke windows and set fire to a number of shops in the city centre. The police delayed any attempt to stop them, thus giving the news media plenty of time to film the vandalism.

On June 1, a British protester was hospitalised after Swiss police attacked demonstrators in Lausanne, on the northern shore of Lake Geneva opposite Evian, with teargas, water cannon and clubs. Police followed protesters back to a camp near the University of Lausanne, arresting hundreds. Similar attacks, were made by police against demonstrations in Geneva.

In Annemasse, on the French side of the border, thousands of demonstrators attempted to march on Evian, but were forced back by police using with teargas, rubber bullets and concussion grenades.

The police "are using indiscriminate force against peaceful protesters and attempting to criminalise the whole movement", Alessandro Pelizzari, one of the protest organisers told the June 3 British Guardian.

Later on June 1, around 100,000 protesters took part in a mass demonstration that converged on the Franco-Swiss border; 40,000 arrived from the Swiss side of the border and 60,000 from the French.

On June 3, 100,000 protesters gathered in two columns from Geneva and Annemasse and met at the French-Swiss border crossing of Thonex-Vallard.

From Green Left Weekly, June 11, 2003.

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From GLW issue 541