International

Anti-capitalist protestors plunged the start of the G20 summit in Hamburg into chaos on Friday as they blocked the streets leading to the venue.

Protestors attacked a police helicopter with a firework, set dozens of cars alight and tore down street signs to barricade the roads. Police responded with water cannon and baton charges.

Melania Trump was blocked by protestors from reaching an event organised for the spouses of leaders on Friday.Angela Merkel's husband, Joachim Sauer, was hosting the spouses. But a spokesman for the US delegation said they had been unable to get security clearance for Ms Trump to travel to the event.

"We have no security clearance from the police to leave the guesthouse," Mrs Trump's spokesperspon told German media. Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian prime minister, tweeted that he was under “security lockdown” with the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo. Police guarding the hotel where Mr Turnbull is staying briefly came under attack by protestors at one point.

Meanwhile a car belonging to the Canadian delegation had its tyres slashed by protestorsA press conference by EU representatives Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk started 45 minutes late amid reports that they had been delayed by the chaos on the streets.

And Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, had to pull out of a meeting because he could not reach the venue, according to organisers.But Donald Trump made it to the summit on time, driving through the city at high speed under heavy police escort.

But the authorities were accused of a heavy-handed response, with a joke doing the rounds on Twitter that the Hamburg police were trying to make Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feel at home.

As Angela Merkel welcomed leaders to the conference centre where the summit is being held, outside protestors attempted to stage a sit-in.

They dragged police barricades out of place to set up their own roadblocks, and let off green smoke bombs.Riot police forced the protestors out of the street, in some cases dragging them out bodily.

A woman in a blue smock hung limp as polic dragged her along the ground by her arms. Officers picked up two young men with masks and threw them onto the pavement.

Police then began kettling the protestors, trapping some innocent bystanders in the process. Protestors attempted to stage a new sit-in further down the road, and the entire process had to be repeated.

Eventually the water cannons were moved in, and the protestors dispersed.These were not the scenes Mrs Merkel wanted when she decided to hold the G20 in central Hamburg. The word is that she wanted to show that an advanced democracy permits peaceful protest.

Instead the images that will go around the world are of heavily armoured police shoving protestors out of the way, and the comparisons with Mr Erdogan’s Turkey.