Embattled German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's efforts to water down his unpopular economic reforms met with rejection Monday as up to 70,000 people took to the streets in scores of cities and towns throughout the nation. In the largest protest march, as many as 20,000 protesters marched in Magdeburg in eastern Germany, RTL Television reported. "I'm a well-qualified school teacher, I'm over 50, I'm out of work," one woman told a TV interviewer in Magdeburg. "I'm fed up." The scene was repeated in communities large and small across Germany Monday in what analysts termed a key turning point in the national debate over Schroeder's controversial economic and social reforms. Monday's turnout was far larger than the 40,000 protester who marched last week against the reforms in eastern Germany. Monday's protests also included cities in western Germany such as Cologne, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart and Hamburg. But those protest marches were far smaller than the ones in eastern Germany. And for the first time in the new wave of weekly Monday marchers, protests occurred in Berlin as well, where 10,000 protesters marched past government ministries. --MORE 2324 Local Time 2024 GMT
