Berlin - More than 130 people were injured and 300 were detained in May Day unrest in Germany following clashes throughout the country between police, far-right demonstrators and neo-Nazis, authorities said on Monday.
Violence at neo-Nazi marches marred the traditional Labour Day celebrations in the eastern city of Leipzig and Worms in western Germany, while rampages by "hooligans" in Berlin led mainly to property damage.
In Leipzig, some of the 800 far-right protesters scuffled with police, who had deployed 3 100 officers and initially blocked the start of a march from the city's main train station.
Security forces stopped the event earlier then planned because they could not guarantee the safety of the participants, police said.
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Four thousand leftist counter-demonstrators blocked the march route at several points and launched flares. Police cleared the area with water cannons and detained more than 100 people. Seventy-six people were injured, including 66 police officers.
In Worms, 10 police officers were hurt, one of them seriously, as authorities attempted to prevent confrontations between leftists and right-wing extremists.
And in unrest that has become an annual tradition in the capital, youths threw rocks and bottles at police into the night in the multicultural Kreuzberg district, the scene of pitched battles on May Day since the late 1980s.
But police said that the day was the most peaceful in two decades thanks to an enormous deployment of officers - 6 200 - and an effective de-escalation policy.
Nevertheless, 193 people were detained and 52 police officers were injured. - Sapa-AFP
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