May Day Marching

France was the focus of this year’s annual Labour Day protests, with more than 1 million people coming out to protest against right wing populist presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, according to the French interior ministry.

Shouting "Down with, down with, down with the National Front," protestors in more than 100 towns used Europe’s annual day of protest to appeal for Le Pen and his party’s defeat in the second round of elections this Sunday.

The anti-European, anti-immigrant Le Pen shocked the world by winning more than 17 percent of the vote in the first round of France’s elections last week. He faces incumbent conservative President Jacques Chirac in a vote most of Europe is watching with bated breath.

"It is not me who is bringing shame on France," Le Pen told the estimated 10,000 who gathered in Paris Wednesday to support him. "It’s Chirac who is besmirching France’s image abroad."

The protests went relatively peacefully. Police reported only a few minor scuffles and no arrests.

Clashes in Zurich and Berlin

That wasn’t the case in cities like Berlin and Zurich, where police used water cannons to disperse anarchists and leftist radicals. One woman was seriously injured by a flying bottle and hundreds of people in two neighborhoods suffered facial cuts as radicals scuffled with police.

Switzerland had banned the annual May Day protest, but radicals gathered anyway and got doused by police water cannons.

Rest of Europe marches peacefully

Protests in other European cities went more smoothly. Workers gathered for a 75,000-strong march through the medieval streets of Bologna. The Italian unions called for peace and steady employment.

May day demonstrators blocked intersections in London but the marches continued to be relatively peaceful as of Wednesday evening. Demonstrators held a carnival type march through the streets which included a slow bicycle ride and picnic. London’s sex workers planned to hold a march Wednesday evening.