A protest against financial institutions that drew tens of thousands of supporters on Saturday took a violent turn as packs of hooded youths waged a city-wide street fight with police.
Hundreds of young people launched cobblestones, firecrackers and flares at columns of police who responded with water cannons and tear gas. Police said at least three civilians and 10 police officers, including one who suffered a broken leg, had been wounded so far in the clashes.
The protest in Rome was one of many rallies taking place around the world as part of an international day of protest inspired by the "Indignant Ones" movement in Spain and the Occupy Wall Street protests in the U.S. Most of the protests were peaceful.
In Toronto, protesters took to the streets of Canada's financial capital, kicking off "Occupy Bay Street." Police on site estimated crowds of about 2,000. The crowds centered midmorning in the financial district of the city, home to the country's main stock exchange and the headquarters of Canada's biggest banks, clustered around Bay Street.
Smashed Windows, Burned Cars
The demonstration in Rome started peacefully as families and students marched along a serpentine route that passed the Colosseum. Their path was quickly infiltrated by groups of hooded young people who wore bandannas to conceal their faces and helmets to shield against police reprisals. Banks along the protest route had their windows smashed and luxury cars were burned, sending plumes of black smoke above Rome's skyline.
Within hours, the crowds of elderly and families who initially formed the protest had dispersed as police began to engage the violent groups. Riot control trucks armed with water cannons that tried to subdue the violent mobs were repeatedly forced to retreat as hooded people climbed on top of them trying to break their windows with batons and rocks.
Rome's mayor, Gianni Alemanno, denounced the violence, saying there was a "clear distinction" between the rabble rousers and the peaceful protesters who organized the march. "There are groups of violent people that need to be isolated," he said.
"The incredible levels of violence reached by a nourished group of rioters during the Rome demonstration represents a very worrying sign for civil coexistence," said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The violence is a sign of the difficult straits facing European governments and regulators as they seek to adopt austerity measures aimed at pulling the euro-zone's weakest economies out of a spiraling debt crisis. Many Italians say spending cuts adopted by Mr. Berlusconi unfairly burden younger generations to pay down Italy's €1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) debt.
This week, however, the public anger has pivoted from Mr. Berlusconi's government towards pillars of the international financial system such as the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. The ECB, which is backstopping Italy's debts, has pressed Mr. Berlusconi's government to make big cuts to public spending and adopt growth-boosting measures aimed at reviving the country's moribund economy. For days protesters have been camping across the street from the Bank of Italy.
"Young people are right to be indignant ... as long as their protests do not degenerate," Bank of Italy governor Mario Draghi, who will succeed Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the European Central Bank, told reporters on the margins of a Group of 20 meeting in Paris. Asked specifically about the riots in Rome, Mr. Draghi said: "It's a real shame."
There were bursts of violence throughout the city as packs of hooded youths broke away from the main protest route. Rioters dragged trash canisters into the street, lightening them ablaze and blocking traffic. A warehouse used by the Defense Ministry was attacked and set on fire, causing its ceiling to collapse, according to a defense ministry spokesman.
At times the rioters turned on the media covering the protests. A group of journalists, including a Wall Street Journal reporter, was accosted by rioters who stripped the journalists of their notebooks and cameras.
The epicenter of the clashes on Saturday was the grassy piazza in front of the baroque facade of San Giovanni Basilica, where hordes of young people tried to break through police barricades. Explosions rang out across the piazza as police fired canisters of tear gas into the mobs that tore down street signs. One armored police van deployed in the riot control effort was set on fire. The driver, clad in riot gear, bolted from the vehicle moments before flames burst from its windows. By nightfall, police managed to drive the violent mob from the square.
Peaceful protesters lamented the violence, saying the clashes had drowned out their criticism of the global banking system, which they say is driven by greed.
"The march was broken in pieces by these clashes," said Lavinia Inciocchi, a 16 year-old high school student. "This morning we thought we were part of a just cause and tonight we're going home disappointed."
'Entirely Constructive'
Elsewhere, protests were largely peaceful. In Toronto, seemingly unaffiliated protesters joined organized labor groups in the protests. Similar demonstrations were planned for other Canadian cities, from Calgary in the western province of Alberta to Montreal in French-speaking Quebec.
Organized loosely over previous weeks, demonstrators in Toronto expressed wide-ranging economic grievance—from income inequality, complaints over layoffs and condemnation of big executive payouts.
Like the protesters in the U.S., who have massed in a public square near Wall Street in recent days, the Canadian protesters have fashioned themselves as the voice of an overwhelming majority of Canadians, who they say have been left behind by the economic damage of the global financial crisis and its aftermath.
"We're trying to give voice to the voiceless right now -- the 99% that have been sitting at home fuming about what these folks on Bay Street have been doing over the years," said Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labor, a union with around one million members. "Here's an opportunity for them to come out."
Canadian officials have braced for large-scale protests and possible violence over the weekend and into next week. Landlords have warned tenants of downtown buildings to plan for disruptions through next week. But by late afternoon, protests in Toronto and elsewhere in Canada appeared small and peaceful.
Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, in a TV interview aired late Friday, called the planned demonstrations "entirely constructive"—comments in marked contrast to sometimes-dismissive remarks by some politicians and executives in the U.S.
Mr. Carney called the growing movement a "physical and vocal manifestation of cold figures," given the bleak economic indicators and growing wealth gaps, particularly in the U.S.
Frankfurt, London, Sydney
In Frankfurt, continental Europe's financial capital, some 5,000 people protested in front of the European Central Bank, while in London, around 500 people marched from St. Paul's Cathedral to the nearby stock exchange.
Hundreds took to the streets in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo carrying pictures of Che Guevara and old communist flags that read "Death to capitalism, freedom to the people."
In Sydney, around 300 people gathered Saturday, cheering a speaker who shouted, "We're sick of corporate greed! Big banks, big corporate power standing over us and taking away our rights!"
Only 200 people protested in Tokyo, where Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis dominates public concern. The demonstrators marched outside the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, chanting antinuclear slogans, while opposing the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade bloc that Japan is considering joining. "No to nuclear power, no TPP!" the marchers chanted as they held up banners.
In the Philippines, about 100 people marched on the U.S. Embassy in Manila to express support for the U.S. Occupy Wall Street protests and to denounce what they called "U.S. imperialism."
In Spain, groups that became known as the Indignant Movement established the first around-the-clock "occupation" protest camps in cities and towns across the country beginning in May and lasting for weeks. Six marches are set to converge Saturday on Madrid's Puerta del Sol plaza just before dusk.
Portuguese protesters angry at their government's handling of the economic crisis were expected in downtown Lisbon in late afternoon. Portugal is one of three European nations—the others being Greece and Ireland—to have already needed an international bailout.
A group of 100 prominent authors, including Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham, signed an online petition declaring their support for "Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement around the world."
In Canada, protests were planned in Montreal and Vancouver as well as at the country's main stock exchange in Toronto.
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