From France to Indonesia, Marking May Day With Protests
France will hold a presidential runoff election on Sunday,
and the two candidates — Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister — campaigned vigorously on Monday.
Earlier in the day, 14,000 people marched elsewhere in Berlin under the banners of the German Federation of Trade Unions, calling for a reduction in the number of temporary contracts
that companies can offer and for guaranteed social benefits for all employees.
Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions marched in Seoul holding red umbrellas, which symbolize the right of workers to form labor unions.
The Berlin police arrested several demonstrators who marched through the fringes of a street festival in
the city’s Kreuzberg neighborhood, for years the site of protests and violence during May Day rallies.
More than 70 people were detained as they tried to march to Taksim Square in central Istanbul to demand better pay
and working conditions, defying a ban on May Day events.
Thousands of workers marched toward the presidential palace in Jakarta to demand
that the government raise minimum wages, limit outsourcing, provide free health care and improve working conditions.
