French union lead­ers con­demned the “Trumpiza­tion” of world pol­i­tics, while in Italy, May Day pro­test­ers pa­rad­ed a pup­pet of the Amer­i­can pres­i­dent through the streets of Turin.

Across con­ti­nents, hun­dreds of thou­sands turned out for Thurs­day’s ral­lies mark­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Work­ers’ Day, many unit­ed in anger over U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s agen­da — from ag­gres­sive tar­iffs stok­ing fears of glob­al eco­nom­ic tur­moil to im­mi­gra­tion crack­downs.

In the Unit­ed States, or­ga­niz­ers framed this year’s protests as a push­back against what they called a sweep­ing as­sault on labour pro­tec­tions, di­ver­si­ty ini­tia­tives and fed­er­al em­ploy­ees.

In Ger­many, union lead­ers warned that ex­tend­ed work­days and ris­ing an­ti-im­mi­grant sen­ti­ment were dis­man­tling labour pro­tec­tions.

In Bern, Switzer­land, thou­sands marched be­hind ban­ners de­nounc­ing fas­cism and war — part of a wider back­lash against the glob­al surge of hard-right pol­i­tics.

In France, union lead­ers pre­dict­ed hun­dreds of thou­sands would join demon­stra­tions across the coun­try, fu­elled by anger over U.S. mil­i­tary and trade in­flu­ence in Eu­rope. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mé­len­chon con­demned Wash­ing­ton’s role in glob­al in­sta­bil­i­ty, ac­cus­ing the U.S. of push­ing Eu­rope to­ward con­flict and eco­nom­ic sub­servience.

“If the North Amer­i­cans don’t want our goods any­more, we can just sell them to oth­ers,” he said.

In Spain, thou­sands marched through the ma­jor ar­ter­ies of Madrid, Barcelona and oth­er cities, with de­mands rang­ing from a short­er work­week to an­swers for a his­toric pow­er out­age that blacked out the Iber­ian Penin­su­la ear­li­er this week. Trump’s name al­so sur­faced.

“The world has changed a bit with Trump’s ar­rival,” said Án­gel López, 56, a work­er from Madrid. “The ar­rival of the far right to a coun­try like the Unit­ed States is a ma­jor glob­al shift.”

Trump-fu­elled eco­nom­ic fears shad­ow Asia

Tai­wan’s Pres­i­dent Lai Ching-te cit­ed new U.S. tar­iffs un­der Trump as he pro­mot­ed a sweep­ing eco­nom­ic pack­age aimed at shoring up jobs and in­dus­try.

In the Philip­pines, protest leader Mong Palati­no warned that “tar­iff wars and poli­cies of Trump” threat­ened lo­cal in­dus­tries and peo­ple’s liveli­hoods.

In Japan, Trump’s im­age loomed over the day — quite lit­er­al­ly — as a truck in the Tokyo march car­ried a doll made to re­sem­ble him. Demon­stra­tors there called for high­er wages, gen­der equal­i­ty, health care, dis­as­ter re­lief, a cease­fire in Gaza, and an end to Rus­sia’s in­va­sion of Ukraine.

“For our chil­dren to be able to live with hope, the rights of work­ers must be rec­og­nized,” said Junko Ku­ramochi, a mem­ber of a moth­ers’ group in Tokyo.

Tadashi Ito, a union con­struc­tion work­er, said he feared the ris­ing cost of im­port­ed raw ma­te­ri­als.

“Every­body is fight­ing over work, and so the con­tracts tend to go where the wages are cheap­est,” he said. “We think peace comes first. And we hope Trump will erad­i­cate con­flict and in­equal­i­ties.”

Wor­ries over Amer­i­can tar­iffs

Un­der over­cast skies in Taipei, about 2,500 union mem­bers marched from the pres­i­den­tial of­fice, rep­re­sent­ing sec­tors from fish­eries to telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pro­test­ers warned that Trump’s tar­iffs could lead to job loss­es.

“This is why we hope the gov­ern­ment can pro­pose plans to pro­tect the rights of labour­ers,” said union leader Car­los Wang. An au­towork­ers’ union car­ried a cutout car topped with a pho­to of Trump.

Lai said his ad­min­is­tra­tion had sub­mit­ted a 410 bil­lion New Tai­wan dol­lar ($12.8 bil­lion) bill to sup­port lo­cal in­dus­try and shield the econ­o­my from glob­al shocks.

In Mani­la, thou­sands of Fil­ipino work­ers ral­lied near the pres­i­den­tial palace, where po­lice blocked ac­cess with bar­ri­cades. Pro­test­ers de­mand­ed wage hikes and stronger pro­tec­tions for lo­cal jobs and small busi­ness­es.

In Jakar­ta, In­done­sian Pres­i­dent Prabowo Subianto ad­dressed a cheer­ing crowd at the Na­tion­al Mon­u­ment Park.

“The gov­ern­ment that I lead will work as hard as pos­si­ble to elim­i­nate pover­ty from In­done­sia,” he said.

Rough­ly 200,000 work­ers were ex­pect­ed to take part in May Day ral­lies across South­east Asia’s largest econ­o­my, ac­cord­ing to Said Iqbal, pres­i­dent of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of In­done­sian Trade Unions. Their de­mands in­clud­ed wage in­creas­es, an end to out­sourc­ing, and stronger pro­tec­tions for both do­mes­tic and mi­grant labour­ers.

Is­tan­bul may­or’s ar­rest in fo­cus of protests in Turkey

In Turkey, May Day served as a plat­form not on­ly for la­bor rights but for broad­er calls to up­hold de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues. Tens of thou­sands gath­ered on Is­tan­bul’s Asian shore in Kadikoy for a ral­ly, where some protest­ed the jail­ing of Is­tan­bul’s op­po­si­tion may­or, Ekrem Imamoglu.

His im­pris­on­ment in March sparked the coun­try’s largest protests in more than a decade. Au­thor­i­ties blocked ac­cess to cen­tral Is­tan­bul and shut down tran­sit lines. A law as­so­ci­a­tion said that more than 400 pro­test­ers were ar­rest­ed by mid-af­ter­noon near Tak­sim Square in­clud­ing lawyers try­ing to fol­low the de­ten­tions.

A big ral­ly planned in LA

Los An­ge­les is ex­pect­ed to host one of the world’s largest May Day events this year — just days af­ter Trump passed the 100-day mark of his re­turn to of­fice. Or­ga­niz­ers say the protests re­flect mount­ing frus­tra­tion with poli­cies they see as favour­ing ty­coons over work­ers and cor­po­ra­tions over com­mu­ni­ties.

While the demon­stra­tions fo­cus on labour rights, many al­so took aim at the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ef­forts to weak­en unions, re­duce the fed­er­al work­force, and curb pro­tec­tions for im­mi­grants. Across the coun­try, hun­dreds of ral­lies were planned by labour unions, stu­dent groups and grass­roots coali­tions, echo­ing a broad­er call to pri­or­i­tize pub­lic ser­vices over pri­vate prof­its and work­ing fam­i­lies over wealthy elites.

A ban­ner at the LA march sum­ma­rized the day’s theme: “One Strug­gle, One Fight — Work­ers Unite!”

“We’re bring­ing the fight to the bil­lion­aires and politi­cians who are try­ing to di­vide us with fear and lies. We know the truth — an at­tack on im­mi­grant work­ers is an at­tack on all work­ers,” said April Ver­rett, pres­i­dent of the Ser­vice Em­ploy­ees In­ter­na­tion­al Union, which rep­re­sents 2 mil­lion work­ers. —PARIS (AP)

________

Sto­ry by YURI KAGEYA­MA and THOMAS ADAM­SON | As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

Yuri Kageya­ma re­port­ed from Tokyo, Japan.

As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists con­tribut­ing to this re­port in­clud­ed: Suman Naishad­ham in Madrid, Spain; Nico­las Gar­ri­ga and Masha Macpher­son in Paris, France; Jamey Keat­en in Gene­va, Switzer­land; Joeal Calupi­tan in Mani­la, Philip­pines; An­drew Wilks in Is­tan­bul, Turkey; Niniek Karmi­ni in Jakar­ta, In­done­sia; Sophia Tareen in Chica­go, USA; and Tai­jing Wu in Taipei, Tai­wan.