BERLIN, Aug 16 (AFP) - More than 90,000 people, according to organisers, hit the streets of several German cities Monday to protest looming cuts in unemployment benefits, continuing a series of weekly protests against government reforms.
The number of protestors was sharply higher than last Monday, when about 40,000 people took up the call from inions and associations.
Leipzig saw the biggest tournout with than more than 20,000 people protesting, according to police.
It was followed by Berlin, holding a "Monday demonstration" for the first time, with 15,000 people taking to the streets of the capital.
Organisers said there were about 13,000 protestors in Magdeburg, an eastern city where the demonstrations started, and 5,500 in Halle, 5,000 in Rostock, 4,500 in Dessau, three other eastern cities.
"The reforms mean dispossession, degradation and deprivation of rights," said an organizer of the Berlin demonstration, Sascha Kimpel.
The measures, set to come into force in January, will reduce benefits for the long-time jobless to the level of social welfare payments, meaning a large cut in income for many families.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made a number of concessions last week to mollify opponents and protect the poorest, but the government insisted Monday that there would be no more fine-tuning.
"There will be no further changes," government spokesman Bela Anda told reporters.
Unions are still involved in the rallies which, to the ire of Schroeder's Social Democrats, organizers have compared to the "Monday demonstrations" against former East Germany's communist rulers.
Schroeder tried to play down the protests last week, saying that of a population of 16 million in eastern Germany, "we're talking about 10, 20,000 demonstrators".
The government says the changes are necessary to revive competitiveness in the eurozone's biggest economy, but the cutbacks will hit the eastern states hardest where unemployment was at 18.5 percent in July.
An estimated one million people in the east and 1.2 million in the more populous, prosperous west would be affected by the reforms, which also require those on the dole to use family savings and life insurance policies to support themselves.
With the Social Democrats struggling badly in opinion polls, the demonstrations are likely to have political fallout on an important state election in Brandenburg, eastern Germany next month.