Far Leftists Torch Tesla, Smash Shops at G7 Summit in Geneva
Far-left extremists rioted in Geneva on Sunday, torching vehicles and attacking police with improvised weapons ahead of Trump's G7 meeting after French authorities banned protests near the summit.
With the G7 summit set to convene in Évian, France, radical leftist activists exploited the proximity of the Swiss border to launch riots in Geneva, according to Breitbart News.
The demonstration was forced to take place 50 kilometres away from the actual summit site after French authorities banned protests on their territory against the G7 gathering.
Swiss officials anticipated approximately 50,000 protesters would descend on the city, prompting the deployment of 7,000 police officers in an effort to contain the unrest that has become characteristic of leftist reactions to G7 summits.
The Swiss German-language newspaper Blick documented the descent into violence around 5 pm local time, when agitators set a Tesla vehicle ablaze, completely destroying it, while simultaneously smashing the windows of a nearby bank with hammers.
Violent clashes erupted between demonstrators and law enforcement, with rioters wielding iron bars, bicycles, and wooden sticks as weapons against officers, the publication reported.
In a particularly brazen escalation, some protesters broke into a construction site and looted building materials and tools to use as improvised weapons and projectiles against police forces, Blick noted.
Police responded with tear gas and water cannons to disperse the most violent elements within the crowd.
G7 summits have long attracted violent anti-capitalist demonstrations, including the notorious 2001 Genoa summit that left roughly 100 police officers wounded and resulted in the fatal police shooting of 23-year-old protester Carlo Giuliani.
A previous Évian summit in 2003 also descended into chaos as hundreds of black bloc anarchists blockaded roads, battled police, torched vehicles, hurled molotov cocktails, and looted businesses.
Given this violent history, numerous shops in the area preemptively boarded up their windows and storefronts ahead of Sunday’s demonstrations.
While ostensibly organized as a protest against international capitalism, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper observed that the demonstration attracted a diverse coalition of leftist factions, including radical feminists, communists, trade unionists, and pro-Palestine agitators.
With information from Breitbart News
