Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero went before disgruntled Spaniards in an unprecedented town hall meeting on Tuesday and defended his record on everything from Basque separatism to widows' pensions and college graduates struggling to emancipate themselves on scant wages.
Zapatero stood before an audience of 100 people selected by a polling firm as representing an accurate cross-section of Spanish society. Zapatero's party faces local and regional elections in May and a general election in a year's time.
The prime minister braved questions from Spaniards who said they were outraged over the government's perceived leniency toward the Basque separatist group ETA, puzzled over why Spain's long economic bonanza does not show up in their wallets and concerned that his party seems forever at loggerheads with opposition conservatives.
On ETA, Zapatero said that after 40 years of violence by the armed separatist group it was his government's responsibility to try to end the carnage -- a peace process the government announced last year after ETA called a truce and seemed promising but ended in an ETA bombing in December that killed two people. He said ETA is Spain's only serious problem.
"It was my obligation to try to do away with this scourge," Zapatero said.
On the economy, one questioner said Spain's participation in the euro currency may have been praised as historic but meant nothing to Spaniards struggling to make ends meet on a blue-collar salary.
Zapatero said he was bullish on Spain growing even more economically.
"I have a very optimistic vision of Spain," he said.
Several young people asked the prime minister what the government planned to do to help youths who graduate from college and end up with work providing little job stability and salaries of 1,000 euros a month when an apartment in Madrid, for instance, can go for 500,000 euros (US$650,000).
The government is spending a lot on subsidized housing and trying to stimulate Spain's very dormant rental market, Zapatero said.
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