ANNEMASSE (France), May 31: French police fired teargas on Saturday to disperse several hundred anarchists in the first major disturbance on the eve of a summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries.

Eyewitnesses said the incident came after the protesters marched from an anti-G8 campsite near the French town of Annemasse on the Swiss border to blockade a building where French Socialist Party activists were meeting.

It was the first clash in what both protest leaders and police had said would be a series of peaceful marches and sit-ins during the three-day summit in the nearby French spa town of Evian, which opens on Sunday.

Authorities on both sides of the border, fearful of a repetition of violence that rocked a G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, two years ago, have mounted a massive security operation involving some 25,000 police and security officials.

It was not immediately clear why the anarchists, carrying their traditional black-and-red flags, decided to march against the socialists — although hard-left movements generally regard social democratic parties as “hirelings of capitalism”.

Marchers said they threw stones at the building where the socialists were meeting to discuss the G8 summit after guards inside fired a spray at them. The anarchists began setting up barricades but French riot police moved in, firing volleys of teargas to push them back to the campsite at Annemasse airfield, where earlier in the day protesters were instructed in passive resistance techniques.

Police barricades were going up on both sides of the French- Swiss border around Lake Geneva to halt protesters trying to move off permitted routes. Army helicopters circled overhead.—Reuters