04 April 2004	Sunday	13 Safar 1425

BERLIN, April 3: Up to a million people poured onto the streets of Berlin, Paris and Rome on Saturday to voice their anger at European governments' plans to reform their pensions, health and labour market systems, according to police and organisers.

More than 400,000 people marched in Berlin and other German cities, police and organisers said, while similar rallies, called by trade unions, old-age pensioners' groups and anti-globalisation movements, were held in Rome and Paris.

The demonstrations followed an appeal by the European Trade Union Confederation for two days of Europe-wide action against the tough reform plans being introduced by governments across Europe.

The head of the French communist General Confederation of Labour (CGT), Bernard Thibault, joined about 250,000 people who marched in brilliant sunshine in Berlin to the slogan "Stand Up for Work and Social Justice".

Police said the march was generally disciplined, but a handful of masked agitators hurled paint at the headquarters of the employers' association.

About 120,000 people demonstrated in the industrial city of Cologne in western Germany, and another 100,000 took to the streets of Stuttgart, a major car-manufacturing centre in the south-west.

The German parliament this month approved a far-ranging reform package notably designed to save the state pensions budget from bankruptcy, but at the cost of lower payments for millions of elderly.

A majority of German voters believe the government's reform drive unfairly strikes at the elderly and the poor with pension cuts, weaker job protection laws, new co-payments for state health care and tax cuts for top earners.

And the German services union, Ver.di, has threatened to stage public sector strikes in protest at plans to lengthen the civil servant working week.

Meanwhile central Rome was flooded with demonstrators as hundreds of thousands of people, many of them elderly, staged the latest in a series of protests against pension reform plans by Italy's centre-right government.

Italy's main labour unions claimed 500,000 people had demonstrated in Rome.

Last week, similar numbers marched in cities across Italy during a general strike called in protest at Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's pension reform plans, which yet have to be approved by parliament.

Italy has Europe's highest population of elderly people, with about 16.4 million retired people to a working population of 23 million.

"More than four million pensioners have no more than one million lire (around 500 euros) a month," Silvano Miniati of the Italian Federation of Trade Unions (UIL) told a crowd of thousands on a central Rome piazza.

Some demonstrators held banners asking "Taxes: Who pays more? - the poor. Who pays less? - the rich" - a reference to government plans for tax cuts which are set to benefit high earners.

In Paris, thousands of demonstrators marched through the city centre behind a banner reading "Together in Paris and Europe for jobs, social rights, the welfare state and public services."

Police estimated the turnout in Paris at around 5,000, while organisers said between 10,000 and 15,000 people had joined the rally.

France's right-wing government suffered a landslide defeat in regional elections last month, leading to a major cabinet reshuffle, in what was largely attributed to a backlash over reform plans seen as too market-orientated.

The government plans to overhaul the pensions system, cut taxes, pare back the state sector, liberalise employment laws and reform the social security system, which has an annual deficit of 11 billion euros (13.3 billion dollars).

Protesters in Paris voiced anger at the plans, which are seen as favouring business at the expense of the most vulnerable citizens, with slogans such as "Chiraffarin, out! We want our money back!" - a play on the names of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

The head of the socialist French Confederation of Labour (CFDT), Francois Chereque, called for the harmonisation of company taxes in Europe and "financial policies to encourage job creation and investment in research.

"The message we want to send to European governments and the French government in particular is, we need a genuine French and European policy for employment," he said.

Smaller demonstrations were reported across France, with several thousand marching in southeastern Lyon, in the southwestern wine capital Bordeaux, and in the Mediterranean city of Montpellier.-AFP