Recession fuels worldwide May Day rallies

German and Turkish police clashed with demonstrators on Friday as huge crowds angered by the worst global recession in decades took to the streets worldwide for traditional labor day rallies.

In Germany, on course for its biggest slump since World War II, Berlin police made 49 arrests as young demonstrators hurled bottles and rocks and set fire to cars and rubbish bins in the early hours.

On Friday tens of thousands of people gathered for May Day rallies across Germany and police were bracing for pitched battles later in the day with far-left demonstrators.

Police clash with protestors in Turkey

Planned far-right rallies and counter demonstrations were also expected to result in unrest that has been a feature of May 1 for 20 years in Germany. In Berlin 5,000 police were standing by with water cannon, tear gas and batons.

Turkish riot police fired water cannon and tear gas, firing shots and pepper spray to disperse masked protesters. Young men hurled stones and Molotov cocktails, smashing bank and shop windows in side streets.

An Istanbul police spokesman said 68 demonstrators were detained and 11 police wounded. Leftists and Kurdish separatists regularly clash with police at demonstrations in Turkey and the May Day protest last year also turned violent.

Protestors in Istanbul were chanting "hand in hand against fascism", "repression won't stop us" and "long live the revolution and socialism".

Turkey's government had declared May Day, traditionally marked across Europe and beyond by rallies by labor unions, a public holiday this year under pressure from the unions.

Almost one in three young people in Turkey is without a job and the government fears social unrest and increased ethnic tension because of the downturn. Labor unions, traditionally weak, have become increasingly vocal.

Rallies in France, Spain, Italy

Rallies were held around the world, with organizers everywhere promising to highlight public anger over the crippling recession, which has seen millions lose their jobs.

In France, tens of thousands turned out across the country in a fresh show of force against President Nicolas Sarkozy's handling of the economic crisis, six weeks after as many as three million took to the streets.

In what unions predicted would be the biggest Labor Day turnout in decades, marchers paraded in the cities of Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Grenoble and elsewhere.

France's eight main trade unions have agreed to hold united rallies across the country -- rather than hold rival May Day events -- for the first time since the end of World War II.

"Work, not death," said a banner in Grenoble carried by workers from the German car parts maker Schaeffler, which is soon to close a plant in the area, as they marched behind colleagues carrying a coffin.

In Spain, where the government expects nearly one in five workers to be out of a job next year, large crowds of demonstrators gathered in central Madrid, and in Austria, a large crowd gathered in front of Vienna city hall.

And in Italy, leaders of the main unions held their rally at the town of L'Aquila in a show of solidarity after the devastating earthquake there last month which killed nearly 300 people.

Greece, Japan, SKorea, Russia

Greek police said they fired tear gas in a clash with 300 people at Athens Polytechnic. Elsewhere in Athens, nearly 6,000 protesters, mostly members of a communist trade union, gathered under the watchful eyes of 4,000 police. Many were angry at bank bailouts.

"We won't pay for their crisis," read banners from the country's main trade union GSEE.

In Tokyo, some 36,000 people rallied in Yoyogi Park, demanding more welfare benefits and others protesting military spending, with many more youths and people in their 20s joining the event than in recent years.

In South Korea, some 8,000 workers and students rallied in a Seoul park urging an end to lay-offs and wage cuts caused by the crisis. There were also rallies in Manila, the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and Taipei.

In Russia, about 2,000 demonstrators gathered by a statue of Karl Marx in Moscow waving banners and red Soviet flags and calling for a return of communism.

In Russia's second city Saint Petersburg, birthplace of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, police arrested about 100 members of far right and anti-immigrant groups who tried to demonstrate in the centre.

We won't pay for their crisis

Banners in Greece