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Plans for a McDonald's hamburger shop in Berlin's alternative Kreuzberg district have angered residents of the organic food and anti-globalist enclave.
The site on Kreuzberg's Wrangelstrasse, where the branch of the American fast food chain is scheduled to open for business in about three months, is guarded day and night by security guards. The site's fence has been daubed with graffiti.
Last weekend, police were called to the site in the inner city borough to enforce a ban on a planned anti-McDonald's demonstration by a group calling itself McWiderstand - or McResistance. But officers failed to stop activists dressed in McDonald's clown wigs from scaling the fence and waving protest banners.
Berlin may have 40 McDonald's stores, but the fast food chain's decision to open in alternative Kreuzberg - the centre of Berlins' organic food movement and home to scores of ethnic restaurants - has shocked and angered the districts' residents who think their borough is being violated.
Many view McDonald's as as an exponent of American turbo-capitalism, with a low-paid and exploited staff supplying young customers with unhealthy, fattening and gene-manipulated food.
McWiderstand spokesman Philipp Raschdorff, said yesterday that if the McDonald's went ahead, it would have a damaging effect on the borough's school children.
"Instead of going to their own cafeterias, school pupils will end up eating at MacDonald's which sizes them up as the fat children of tomorrow," he said.
He added: "Kreuzberg is a very alternative neighbourhood with a lot of small businesses. There is no Burger King, and no Ikea. This is what distinguishes the area."
His views are shared by Christian Stroebele, Kreuzberg's veteran Green MP, who said: "I fear that with all its media power, MacDonald's will tempt pupils and stop them eating their usual sandwich and apple for lunch."
McDonald's employs 52,000 people at its 1276 German restaurants.
Company spokesman Alexander Schramm dismissed Kreuzberg's objections to the restaurant, saying it would add to the area's already diverse choice of eating places.
He said the average age of young people attending a college close to the planned restaurant was 20.
"They are old enough to decide where they want to eat."
- INDEPENDENT
