Enlarge image
The demonstrators gathered on Augustusplatz
Photo: Sebastian Willnow / dpa
Several thousand people demonstrated against high energy prices in Leipzig in the evening.
Both initiators from the left and from the right spectrum had called for this.
According to estimates by observers, more than 2,000 people took part in a rally and a procession by the Left Party under the motto "Hot autumn against social cold".
At the same time, around 1,000 supporters of right-wing groups such as the small Free Saxony party protested in the immediate vicinity.
According to the police, counter-demonstrators repeatedly blocked the elevator of the right-wing extremists on the inner city ring road.
After a blockade by around 100 counter-demonstrators, the right-wingers shortened their elevator and returned to their starting point.
The police were deployed with a larger contingent to separate the two camps on Augustusplatz in the city center.
There were repeated attempts by counter-demonstrators to disrupt the procession of right-wing groups.
According to a police spokesman, there were several scuffles.
The Leipzig police were supported in securing the demonstrations on Monday evening by the Saxon riot police and the federal police, among others.
Speakers at the left-wing demonstration, including the parliamentary group leader Amira Mohamed Ali, criticized the energy policy of the traffic light federal government made up of SPD, Greens and FDP.
Measures such as the gas levy aggravated the social situation of many people in view of the high energy and living costs.
Debate on Monday demonstrations
Right-wing extremist groups had tried beforehand to give the impression that they would be pulling in the same direction as the left.
Both camps symbolically based their protests on the Monday demonstrations in the former GDR.
The Monday demonstrations are also controversial within the Left Party because of their symbolism and because of the risk of a lack of differentiation from the right.
"We won't let the protest take us away," said Left Party leader Martin Schirdewan at the demonstration in Leipzig.
It is "our fundamental democratic right to take our protest against the traffic lights onto the street."
The initiator of the demonstration, the left-wing member of the Bundestag Sören Pellmann, emphasized again that his party wanted to "neither damage nor abuse" the Monday demonstrations.
The Monday demonstrations, which culminated in a peaceful revolution in the GDR in 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, have been used in recent years, especially by right-wing groups, as a label for protests against the Corona measures.
dam/AFP/dpa
