GERMANY: Half-a-million people took to the streets across Germany on Saturday to protest at welfare and healthcuts, with similar protests in France and Italy.
Over 250,000 flag-waving members of unions and left-wing groups marched through Berlin, converging on the Brandenburg Gate in an action to "stand up and be counted".
"The government is dumping the economic slump onto the economically weakest," said Mr Michael Sommer, head of the Federation of German Unions. "If these anti-social policies don't stop, we'll be back."
The protest was one of the largest since Chancellor Gerhard Schröder took office in 1998, and the largest wave of protest a year after the unveiling of Agenda 2010, a mixture of labour market reforms and benefit cuts to restart the economy.
Mr Schröder has argued that, faced with globalisation and an aging population, the cuts are essential to save the welfare state.
"When you organise a reform process you have a problem - the burdens become apparent immediately, while the positive effects come later," said Mr Schröder on Friday.
A year of painful reforms has so far borne little fruit for him. The long-promised economic upswing remains somewhere on the horizon, while unemployment remains at 4.5 million, making the reform process highly unpopular.
Some 64 per cent of Germans believe the government's policies unfairly target the weakest in society, according to a poll for ZDF public television. "It's take, take, take from the less well-off, while business managers are left untouched. This isn't about reform, this is about dismantling the welfare state," said Mr Hans Ulrich Häberle, one of the protesters.
Germany's unions, once staunch allies of the ruling Social Democrats, are now the government's loudest critics. The demonstrations in Berlin, Cologne and Stuttgart were mirrored in Rome and Paris as part of a "European day of action".
Tens of thousands of pensioners marched in Rome demanding higher pensions, while around 15,000 Parisians filled the streets of the French capital.