Swiss protesters take to Geneva streets over budget cuts
Protesters have taken to the streets of the Swiss city of Geneva in an unauthorized demonstration over cuts to budgets for alternative culture.
Police said the late Saturday rally spun out of control when some of the protesters attacked banks and high-end boutiques in the city center. According to officials, a group of some 30 angry protesters, out of the overall 400 rally participants, smashed the buildings’ windows or covered them with graffiti with messages condemning wealth inequality.
The facade of Geneva’s main theater, the 19th-century Grand Theater, and the sculptures lining its entrance were splashed with black and colored paint, interspersed with white graffiti.
“The damage is considerable,” Geneva police spokesman Jean-Philippe Brandt said.
The demonstration had been organized on social media to protest against cuts to budgets for alternative culture sites, even as Geneva “is subsidizing the Grand Theater, a bourgeois culture site with prices out of reach for most people.”
The demonstration began around 10:00 pm (2100 GMT) outside the central train station, Brandt said.
Police had blocked off parts of the city to try to halt the protesters’ movement, but had not immediately made any arrests.
“It is difficult to do so in the heat of the moment. Now we are investigating to try to clarify who the main culprits were,” Brandt said.
On Sunday morning, Geneva residents appeared shocked by the damage, with many stopping to take pictures as work began to scrub clean the facade of the Grand Theater.
Head of Geneva’s Security Ministry Pierre Maudet meanwhile told the Tribune de Geneve daily he was “furious and scandalized” by the incident.
“We are dealing with a gang of professional hooligans,” he said, calling for the perpetrators to be “severely punished.”
Geneva hosts a headquarters of the United Nations (UN). It is also a global hub for banking.
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