ANNEMASSE, France - Thousands of protesters blocked highways and bridges, set fire to barricades and drew volleys of tear gas and rubber pellets Sunday from anti-riot police near the Group of Eight summit in the French town of Evian.
The most violent protests early Sunday were in Lausanne, across Lake Geneva from the G-8 summit site. A core of demonstrators wearing masks hurled rocks at police and a posh hotel and looted a gas station and a supermarket.
Police were seen arresting several rioters.
The morning protests kicked off a day of demonstrations coinciding with the arrival in Evian of most of the leaders of the world's seven industrial powers and Russia. Two marches, one from the French town Annemasse and one from Geneva, started before noon and converged near the Swiss side of the border before heading back to France.
Geneva police said between 17,000 and 21,000 people took part in the marches, though protest organizers claimed there were a total of 120,000 marchers — 50,000 on the Swiss side, 70,000 on the French side.
Early Sunday in Annemasse, a town west of Evian approved as a protest point, demonstrators blocked a highway leading to the summit site with a burning barricade. About 100 riot police fired tear gas to stop them from breaking the security cordon and heading toward Evian.
Later in the day, thousands marched peacefully through Annemasse and crossed over the border into Switzerland. No police were seen along the march route, and there were no agents monitoring the border when the demonstrators crossed.
The anti-G-8 protesters, which authorities had predicted could number as many as 50,000, represent a mishmash of causes, from anti-globalization to relief of Third World debt and environmental protection. They accuse the G-8 of profiting by exploiting the world's poor nations.
Swiss police said Saturday they were taking a cautious approach, hoping to avoid clashes like those at the 2001 summit in Genoa, Italy, in which police killed one demonstrator. About 25,000 police and soldiers were on hand to secure the summit region.
Protesters gathered in Geneva early Sunday, blocking the city's main bridge — the Mont-Blanc — and several others with burning barricades made of trash cans and other items. The crowd, which grew to 10,000, was mostly peaceful, though some smashed the windows of a gas station and threw rocks through the windows of an employment agency, spray-painting "slave-trader" on its walls.
The crowd later left central Geneva, heading toward the border to meet up with the marchers from Annemasse.
In Lausanne, police fired rubber pellets and tear gas into the air to keep a crowd of about 2,000 protesters from the lakeside zone where leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America invited to the summit were staying.
Most of the demonstrators were peaceful, but an aggressive core of about 200 wearing black ski masks and other face coverings knocked down phone booths and tore down signs. They threw large rocks at the Hotel Royal and at police guarding the Olympic Museum.
They also looted a construction site for scaffolding and bars, presumably to build barricades on several streets. Rioters ransacked an Esso gas station, stealing candy and cigarettes that they then handed out to people watching the demonstration. They also broke into a supermarket.
Earlier Sunday, outside of Annemasse, about 1,500 demonstrators gathered on the main highway to the summit site, setting up steel barricades on the road and lighting a bonfire. They
The protesters set up steel barricades on the road and lit a bonfire, shouting slogans and unfurling a banner that read, "Stop: Danger G-8." A clutch of demonstrators threw stones at the 100 police, who responded with tear gas and bursts of water cannon.
In addition to Russia, the G-8 includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.
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