Protests against German car industry rev up in Frankfurt

FRANKFURT, Sept 15 (AFP): Thousands of protesters, many on bicycles, gathered in the southern German city of Frankfurt Saturday to protest outside the city's motor show, part of a new wave of environmental activism.

Between 15,000 and 25,000 people - according to estimates from the police and the organisers respectively - turned out calling for radical change, in a sign of growing impatience with the motor industry.

Campaigners are pressing Germany's car industry to go green and abandon internal combustion engines. Saturday's rally - and another planned on Sunday - followed up on protests inside the Frankfurt Exhibition Centre earlier in the week.

"The car industry has cheated on diesel and is contributing to the worsening climate crisis," said Gerald Neubauer, a spokesman for the campaign group Campact, co-organisers of Saturday's demonstration Saturday at Frankfurt's biennial International Motor Show.