Anti-NATO protesters set ablaze a hotel and other buildings near the river Rhine today and riot police fired volleys of teargas to try to control an upsurge of violence on the fringes of a NATO summit.
Masked youths threw petrol bombs, smashed windows and ransacked shops, forcing massed ranks of police into retreat in the eastern French city of Strasbourg before they re-grouped and tried to seize back control.
French police and fire services helped to extinguish the fires, which gutted several low-rise buildings and ravaged an IBIS hotel. Residents said it took some time for the fire services to arrive.
The worst of the violence was centred close to the French side of the Bridge of Europe -- a road link over the river Rhine which connects France with Germany.
The bridge is 5 km from the conference centre where 28 NATO leaders, including US President Barack Obama, were meeting, and a pall of black smoke was clearly visible from the summit venue.
A German first aid volunteer said around 50 people had been hurt in the clashes with riot police.
"I can't believe the IBIS hotel is burning with all the police that are here. You see that kind of thing on television but in our city that is a whole different thing," said resident Dany Herrenschmidt, watching the destruction with dismay.
PROTEST ORGANISERS SHOCKED
The demonstrators campaigning to have NATO disbanded following the end of the Cold War, had vowed to disrupt today's meeting after two days of skirmishes with police.
However, organisers said they had wanted a peaceful protest and expressed shock at the violence.
"I am very angry. This was meant to be a peaceful demonstration ... and tonight, instead of images of peace we will see images of war," said Marie-George Buffet, a veteran leader of the French Communist party.
As part of the security clampdown, German police arrested 13 divers shortly before leaders crossed the Rhine on a footbridge linking the two European neighbours, in a ceremony symbolising two generations of peace since World War Two.
Groups of protesters attempting to cross the Rhine from Germany via the nearby road bridge clashed briefly with French police and were forced back.
An Iranian journalist based in Germany collapsed with breathing difficulties earlier after being hit in the face with teargas and was taken away by ambulance, witnesses said.
Protest organisers said the majority of tens of thousands of activists in Strasbourg and nearby Baden-Baden did not aim to carry out violence and blamed tensions on security forces.
"No one here has attacked any police, but we have been hit with teargas and beaten up," said spokesman Monty Schaedel.
Police said some of the protesters who left a designated demonstrators' campsite near Strasbourg early today were armed with sticks, barbed wire and stones hidden in sacks.