Educated, poor and in revolt

"Occupy Frankfurt". Borrowing the name from the Wall Street protesters, the left-leaning German daily Frankfurter Rundschau, is pleased with the success of the October 15 anti-capitalist demonstrations. "In Europe and in the entire world" – 951 cities, 82 countries – tens of thousands of people protested against "the almighty banks and the politicians who fail to react," the paper writes in a lead article. Eight thousand people gathered in Frankfurt, at the headquarters of the European Central Bank; 10,000 gathered in Berlin and even in well-heeled Düsseldorf 800 people were mobilized.

"It's a start and not a bad start at all," the paper says, stressing that it is the middle classes, those that risk becoming the educated poor of the future, who are demanding a simple principle: the economy must exist to serve humanity, not vice-versa. "In the meantime, this protest can be understood as a sign that the damage caused by the crises of capitalism can no longer be kept quiet. The quake of the markets has destroyed the Potemkin villages that the [political elite] think they are still managing," it says. In Italy, tens of thousands of people marched through Rome, before the demonstration broke down when small groups set fire to cars and police vans and smashed stores. This stole the headlines away from the real reasons for the march, Italian daily La Stampa says. Some 135 people were injured (including 105 police officers), according to daily La Repubblica which estimated the damage at €2 million.