BERLIN, Aug 30: Tens of thousands of Germans took to the streets on Monday evening as protests against the government's planned welfare cuts entered their fifth week.

Berlin, Leipzig and Magdeburg, all in the east, are again the focus of demonstrations against the job market reforms Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder says are needed to cut unemployment and keep the welfare system affordable for an aging population.

Organizers said the protests had spread to 202 cities, up from 140 a week ago. Schroeder's former finance minister turned arch rival, Oskar Lafontaine, was due to speak at the Leipzig rally.

Lafontaine, a former leader of the ruling Social Democrats and strong critic of the reforms, threatened earlier this month to back a breakaway left-wing party and urged Schroeder to resign.

A spokesman for the Berlin protesters expected more than 200,000 to join nation wide demonstrations on Monday. The "Hartz IV" reforms, which derive their name from Volkswagen executive Peter Hartz, who headed a government commission that proposed the measures, will cut benefits for the long-term unemployed and introduce tougher means testing to encourage jobless people to take work of any kind. -Reuters