Saturday June 19 7:54 AM ET
London Cleans Up After Anti-Capitalist Protest By John O'Callaghan
LONDON (Reuters) - Londoners cleaned up the financial district Saturday after anti-capitalist demonstrators clashed with riot police, burned cars and stormed a major financial exchange.
Almost 50 people needed hospital treatment after a day of mayhem Friday that ended with police herding thousands of protesters away from the City of London banking and finance district into Trafalgar Square.
Saturday, city workers swept up glass and debris in the City and scrubbed graffiti from the base of Nelson's column in the famous West End square.
Some newspapers bumped Saturday's royal wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones down the front page to splash with headlines like ``Mobs put City under siege'' and ``Anarchists in fistfights with City traders.''
``Its supporters like to define anarchy as a harmonious condition of society, in which government is abolished as unnecessary,'' the Daily Telegraph said in an editorial.
``But yesterday's disorder in the City of London made clear why everyone else regards it as a synonym for chaos, violence and the breakdown of law and order.''
Police said up to 10,000 people took part in a series of protests across London, including anti-monarchists, the anti-car group Reclaim the Streets and campaigners calling on Britain to forgive Third World debt.
Thousands of demonstrators carried on with a largely peaceful gathering in the evening as riot squads ringed Trafalgar Square and police helicopters circled overhead.
Police said six people were charged with public disorder offences.
``We'll be back for more anti-royal activities,'' a spokesman for the Movement Against the Monarchy told Reuters Saturday.
Friday's protests were the most violent in the British capital since riots in 1990 against the poll tax -- a form of local taxation introduced by former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher then withdrawn because of bitter opposition.
Transport was thrown into chaos and thousands of commuters were stranded as roads and several underground train stations were closed because of the protests.
In the late afternoon, police charged demonstrators in a narrow street near the Bank of England, provoking a hail of bricks and stones from the mainly anti-capitalist protesters who erected banners such as ``Greed Breeds Mean Deeds.''
``The capitalist system is wrong. Wealth is in the hands of the few, but we are the many,'' said one protester.
Demonstrators set cars alight on streets close to the River Thames and threw missiles at police. A small group smashed their way into the offices of Dutch-owned Rabobank and hurled computers out of the windows.
Some protesters managed to get into the LIFFE derivatives exchange, which evacuated the building after trading ended.
People with bloodied heads walked the streets. Some demonstrators and witnesses blamed riot police for starting the trouble by charging into what they said had been a peaceful protest.