FRANKFURT (The Thursday Times) — Rioters smashed shop windows and looted stores in central Frankfurt late on Saturday, including a gun shop, as youth-led protests over the cost of living turned violent in several German cities.
Police in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial capital, reported “violent riots” in the city centre, sealed off a large stretch of the main shopping street and deployed special units. Molotov cocktails were thrown at emergency services, officials said. The windows of a gun shop were smashed and police seized two weapons after arresting a suspect, while other shops were broken into and trainers and other goods stolen. Many arrests were made, and police said the city had calmed down overnight.
Roman Poseck, interior minister of Hesse state, said “around 100 clearly identified left-wing extremists” had infiltrated the protest and called the way it ended “shameful”. “We all have those images from France in our minds — looting, burning houses, burning police vehicles, and attacks on police officers,” he said. “France must not be held up as a model in this regard.”
Violence also broke out in Berlin, Cologne and Hamburg after largely peaceful marches during the day. Police used water cannon against crowds throwing fireworks, stones and bottles. In Berlin, 27 police officers were injured and up to 56 people were briefly detained, police said. In Cologne, officers were attacked near the main station, and police chief Johannes Hermanns said peaceful young demonstrators had been “infiltrated today by extremists who had nothing but violence in mind”. In Hamburg, people dressed in black set off fireworks and set barricades on fire, and about 120 arrests were reported.
The marches were organised by the campaign group Gen Z regelt (“Gen Z takes charge”) against underfunded schools, the cost of living, spending cuts and compulsory military service. Authorities in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin counted up to 18,000 protesters, about half the organisers’ estimate. “We are against compulsory military service and we are in favour of a fairer distribution of the burden,” spokesperson Lina Friedrich said.
The German protests followed similar youth-led demonstrations in France, where more than 320,000 people marched on Saturday for a third weekend in a row and police fired tear gas in some cities.
