Any summary of May Day protests in 2002 would rightly focus on the extraordinary demonstrations across France in protest against Le Pen.
But there were other noteworthy moments elsewhere too.
In Sydney , thousands of activists focused on two questions – opposition to the obscene treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian government and solidarity with the Palestinians
"The Palestinian resistance and freeing the detained illegal immigrants are one and the same cause" said one teenage girl. "It’s all about overthrowing the colonialism here and in Palestine" she said, as the police waded in to attack the protestors.
Earlier Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Leigh Hubbard told 10,000 workers claims that May Day had had its day were false, as workers faced the same issues now as they did when they first claimed the day as their own 120 years ago.
"Things are as tough as they ever were," he said. "Bosses are still wanting to screw more and more productivity out of workers."
In the Philippine capital of Manila , about 500 socialists took to the streets Wednesday in protests against the government and U.S. military exercises.
They focused on claims that thousands of U.S. troops currently in the Philippines are part of a plan by Washington to re-establish a permanent presence in the Southeast Asian country, which was formerly a U.S. colony and site of U.S. military bases.
Left trade union leader Elmer Labog said Wednesday’s rally would be the start of a campaign to push for President Arroyo’s removal.
"Workers are determined to launch a nationwide campaign to press for her urgent removal" Labog said in a statement. Labog, head of the May 1 Movement, the country’s biggest leftist union, said Arroyo should be removed from office for "her sycophancy to foreign monopoly firms... through her promotion of globalization policies."
In Italy , where unions are in a bitter fight with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, half a million people rallied against proposed reforms they say will make it easier to sack workers.
A sea of red flags and banners transformed a medieval piazza in Bologna , as some 60,000 labour union members, many clutching red carnations, attended a Labour Day rally with the slogan: "For peace, employment, the defence of rights and against terrorism."
Both Greek and Turkish protesters used May Day marches to denounce Israel’s incursion into the West Bank, burning an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon outside the U.S. embassy in Athens .
"Long live international solidarity to Palestine," read a banner in Syndagma Square in central Athens, where thousands of demonstrators had gathered.
"A thousand greetings to the Palestinian resistance," read a slogan at a rally in Istanbul , Turkey.
Meanwhile, Cuba’s President Fidel Castro addressed more than a million May Day demonstrators: "We will not lower our flags before the hegemonic superpower that today dictates its orders to lackeys and boot-lickers," in Latin America.
"This has been the largest demonstration in Cuba since the triumph of the revolution," in 1959, Castro told the crowd in Revolution Square, packed with Cubans in red and white T-shirts waving red, white and blue Cuban flags.
Across the 14 provinces, seven million of Cuba’s 11.2 million people were reported to have assembled in similar rallies.
Castro particularly focused on those Latin American governments – including Argentina – who had supported the recent US criticism of his regime at the UN.
They are the ones who are plagued by "hunger, unemployment, corruption and social marginalization," Castro argued, "they are the political symptom of the fact the prevailing political and economic system in Latin America is coming to an end. They are the swan song of neoliberal society,"
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of chanting, flag-waving Venezuelans marched for President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday, the first large demonstrations since bloody street clashes last month sparked a failed coup.
Chavez supporters – many wearing the red berets made fashionable by the army paratrooper-turned president – held banners labeling the president’s opponents "fascist dictators."
"I was in bed crying for two days when they kicked out Chavez. Then when he came back we were so happy," said Haydee Carriella, 55-year-old woman who came out to support the president.
"The opposition was left like kings without crowns,"
At the pro-Chavez march, many proudly wore red T-shirts reading "Circles of Bolivar" as the neighborhood groups are known, in memomory of the legendary Bolivian revolutionary Simon Bolivar.
"The only weapons we have are the lessons we give the poor – to help them fight for their rights," said Angel Yaraguin, a farmer, joining a stream of people marching toward the presidential palace.