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Many European rallies took place. Demonstrations in Greece, Spain and Portugal were focussed on attacking austerity, whilst in Germany trade union leaders called for a fight against huge pay rises for bosses. In Greece more than 2,000 people marched through central Athens in subdued May Day protests centered on the country’s harsh austerity.



Tens of thousands of people gathered in Istanbul and in France tens of thousands of workers, leftists and union leaders marked May Day with marches and rallies, in an optimistic mood ahead of presidential elections Sunday that a Socialist is expected to win for the first time since 1988.



Earlier, thousands of workers protested in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and other Asian nations, with demands for wage hikes amid soaring oil prices a common theme. They said their take-home pay could not keep up with rising consumer prices, while also calling for lower school fees and expressing a variety of other complaints.

In the Philippine capital, Manila, more than 8,000 members of a huge labor alliance, many clad in red shirts and waving red streamers, marched under a brutal sun for 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to a heavily barricaded bridge near the Malacanang presidential palace, which teemed with thousands of riot police, Manila police chief Alex Gutierrez said. In Indonesia, thousands of protesters demanding higher wages paraded through traffic-clogged streets in the capital, Jakarta, where 16,000 police and soldiers were deployed at locations including the presidential palace and airports.

There were also protests in Taiwan, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

Read more: http://business.time.com/2012/05/01/europe-workers-denounce-austerity-on-may-day/#ixzz1uD3AlQXv