May 1st

This date in France is very traditional. International Workers' Day (a name used interchangeably with May Day) is a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement and left-wing movements. May Day commonly sees organized street demonstrations and street marches by millions of working people and their labour unions throughout most of the countries of the world — though rarely in the United States and Canada. But It is in Berlin one of the only of the year that I stay home and nobody will make me out. I live in the area where most of the fights "traditionaly" take place and I know (now) that from Fridaw afternoon to Sunday morning, most of the faces I could see on the street would be policemen or masked people throwing stones or cocktail molotov. Yesterday afternoon, coming back from work, the policemen had already invested the Boxhagener Platz and I had to open my bag to let the policemen looking at it if I had any bottles in it. Then later on in the evening, while laying on my couch, I could hear from the open window the sound of the megaphone urging people to remain calm. When I had to join my man and friends for drinks later on in the evening, I made a detour to go to Roses (next article) in Kreuzberg. Today the demonstration are in the city and most of all in Kreuzberg, near Görlitzer Park told me a friend. This is what France Info reported early afternoon : "In Berlin, 34 people were briefly detained in incidents involving throwing stones and bottles in the neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain. A handful of right-wing activists were arrested when they tried to prevent a demonstration by left-wing activists Friday night in Treptow-Köpenick, police said. Some 5,800 police, including reinforcements from other regions, including Bavaria, in the south, were raised in Berlin, nearly 800 more than last year, to head off violence. Violent clashes had occurred last year between police and hundreds of "independent" of the extreme left-wing, especially in the Kreuzberg neighborhood, where fights at May 1st and burned vehicles are a tradition since 1987. The police feared possible overflows during demonstrations of the extreme left and extreme right in various parts of the capital later on Saturday."