German police bust cellar hairdressers

Finding the perfect fringe during these times of confinement may prove to be an expensive gamble after German police went underground to uncover two makeshift hairdressing salons on Saturday.

When the officers arrived at the salons, carefully installed in the cellars of two private houses, "people were having their hair done", local police said in a statement.

Two people were waiting for a cut in Elsenfeld and another in a cellar in Momlingen, according to the German agency DPA, which claims that "the salons were professionally equipped".

Police have opened investigations for non-compliance with lockdown measures which, in Bavaria, are among the strictest in Germany.

Under the rules set down at the end of March when confinement started, leaving home without "valid reason" is punishable by a fine of 150 euros.

Hair salons, closed like other businesses considered non-essential, however, will begin to reopen from May 4 in the country as part of a gradual de-confinement.

Public discontent with the confinement rules has been growing gradually in Germany, as in other countries, though Chancellor Angela Merkel's popularity remains high.

She has received plaudits for her management of the health crisis which has seen Germany's Covid-19 toll -- 5,500 according to an AFP tally -- remain significantly lower than in Italy, Spain, France and Britain where the death tolls have all risen above 20,000.

German police arrested dozens of protesters in Berlin on Saturday for flouting the lockdown measures they were demonstrating against.

About 1,000 people turned out for the rally, which has become a weekly event in the German capital.