At least 20,000 Occupy movement demonstrators have gathered in Frankfurt on the fourth day of mass anti-capitalist protests against the current banking system and austerity measures.
“We are in solidarity with the people of Greece and other European countries who are already gravely suffering from cuts across the board which threaten their very existence,'' organizer spokesman Roland Seuss said. Saturday's march is the final demonstration in a four-day-long “Blockupy” protest. It passed off peacefully with demonstrators marching through the center of the city holding anti-capitalist banners. On Friday, however, police detained some 400 protesters from the Blockupy movement after they erected barricades and staged sit-ins.Earlier this week police cleared the protesters` camp outside the European Central Bank that had been there since October. Saturday`s rally was taking place simultaneously with the ECB conference on monetary policy.Some 5,000 police have been deployed in the city for the weekend to oversee the protests.Last fall Germany saw a wave of Occupy protests in solidarity with similar protests in the U.S. and many other countries.