Protesters camp in front of ECB

2011-10-17 18:40

Frankfurt - Around 200 people have set up a makeshift village of tents outside the European Central Bank here as protests against income disparity and corporate greed entered their third day on Monday.

Inspired by the US Occupy Wall Street movement and Spain's "Indignants", the "Occupy Frankfurt" protesters have erected around 50 tents in the city-centre park next to the ECB's Eurotower headquarters and vow to stay on as long as the police will let them.

"We're staying as long as we have permits to stay," said Aaron Kraus, 22, of Occupy Frankfurt who has been there since the protests began on Saturday.

"If we have to clear the place, we'll leave peacefully, but we're constantly applying for new permits" to stay.

Kraus said some of the protesters left their tents grouped around the giant blue-and-yellow euro logo in the park during the day to go to work or to university where they were studying.

"But they come back in the evening and stay the night," he told AFP.

"We've enough food for around 100 people for three days. People are bringing us pasta or potatoes, local restaurants are giving us eggs, bread and apples."

The protesters had also been joined by homeless people, who were helping to hang up placards and posters in return for some food and "a couple of tents" to sleep in, Kraus said.

On the first day of protests on Saturday, organisers estimated a turnout of nearly 6 000, with young people, pensioners and families with children in strollers all joining in, with signs reading "Smash the Dictatorship of Capitalism" and "Don't Sell Out Democracy at the ECB".

- AFP