Geneva, June 01: As leaders of the world`s wealthiest nations prepared to meet yesterday in the French alpine resort of Evian, protestors whipped up tension and vandalism in the nearby inner city of Geneva, Switzerland, last night.
About 300 demonstrators marched through the streets shortly after 11 pm local time, causing broken windows and automobile damage.
Canton police officials in Geneva said more than a dozen stores were totally destroyed, and called the troublemakers ``a well organized group." Most of the protests were directed at public buildings. Police and fire fighters barricaded access to some streets after fire broke out at a petrol station. Clashes began earlier in the day as police and several hundred demonstrators clashed in the French town of Annemasse, not far from Geneva. Police used tear gas against the demonstrators as they tried to build barricades.

There were also clashes at a separate event, a party meeting of the French Socialists.

By nightfall, anti-globalization protestors lit 50 large fires on the French and Swiss banks of lake Geneva - serving as a symbol of protest against the negative effects of economic globalization and also as rallying points for newly arriving demonstrators, protest leaders said.

More than 50,000 demonstrators are expected to go to geneva, at 10 am. Two marches are planned, coming from Geneva and Annemasse, to gather for a rally on the French-Swiss border.

The town of Evian, the mountain resort town also located on lake Geneva - and home of world-reknown bottled water - is being guarded like an armed fortress for the two-day summit of the world`s leading seven industrial countries and Russia.

A Swiss-French police force of 15,000 was on hand to ban demonstrators and protect against possible terrorist attacks.


Bureau Report