Post date: Mar 19, 2013 7:16:33 PM
As Cyprus' parliament was poised to reject a controversial levy on bank deposits, anti-capitalist demonstrators protest in Paris against the global financial system and the Mediterranean country's bailout.
PARIS, FRANCE (MARCH 19, 2013) (REUTERS) - Protesters hit the streets of Paris to burn barrels of 'toxic financial products' on Tuesday (March 19) in anger at the financial sector and the bailout deal for Cyprus.
Clad in anti-contamination suits, protesters accompanied a lorry of containers labelled with toxic warnings and signs describing their contents as 'Hedge Funds' and 'Short sales'.Protester Thomas Coutrot said that banks had to change.
"We can see in Cyprus today and elsewhere that banks continue to go bankrupt, to threaten the stability of economies, continue to create unemployment and lower of salaries. We need to put them on the right path, stop them from polluting economies as they continue doing," he said.
He added that bank creditors across Europe should pay up for the Cyprus deal.
"It's good to make the very rich and russian oligarchs pay, but what we mustn't forget is that we must also make the creditors of banks pay, creditors of cypriot banks. And the creditors of cypriot banks are the european banks, the German banks, the French banks and their shareholders. And once again those big creditors are going to be saved with their money, with the money of cypriot savers," he said.
The barrels were stacked up and then pushed over in the shadow of the French Senate, the upper house of parliament, as symbolic smoke was cast over the 'toxic' waste as a message to the government of French President Francois Hollande.