Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Europe on Saturday to oppose the world's biggest free trade pact between the U.S. and European Union, AFP reported.

Resistance to the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is fierce in Germany, with tens of thousands joining demonstrations across the country, a spokesman for lobby group Attac Germany said.

In southern Germany's Munich alone, 23,000 people joined the protest, while 2,000 turned up in Leipzig, 1,000 in Stuttgart and 700 in Frankfurt.

A recent YouGov poll showed that 43 percent of Germans believe TTIP would be bad for the country, compared to 26 percent who see it as positive.
The level of resistance has taken Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and German industry by surprise, and they are now scrambling to reverse the tide and save a deal which proponents say could add $100 billion in annual economic output on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Berlin, a crowd estimated by police at 1,500 formed a human chain winding from the Potsdamer Platz square, past the U.S. embassy and through the Brandenburg Gate to offices of the European Commission.
In Munich, police put the crowd at 3,000, while organizers Attac estimated it at 15,000. Hundreds also marched in Leipzig, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and other European cities on what Attac hailed as a ""global day of action"" against free trade, though the protests appeared to be largest in Germany.


Demonstrations in other European cities also drew protesters, including 2,000 in Brussels, 1,000 in Madrid and Helsinki, and around 300 in Warsaw and Prague.

The protests came as U.S. and EU officials are set to resume a new round of negotiations in New York on Monday.

The EU-U.S. trade deal would not just slash the already low trade tariffs the two parties share but would also harmonise regulations to an unprecedented degree, affecting goods and services as far-ranging as Roquefort cheese and accounting.

But campaigners in Europe are convinced that powerful interests are selling the consumer short in the secret negotiations.

The most contentious part of the deal includes a clause which allows corporations to sue governments in tribunals that are above national law.



(Source: AFP)