Hundreds of thousands of protesters swamped Spain’s streets on Thursday to back a general strike, marred by clashes in Barcelona where youths set fire to a two-story Starbucks.
Unions said nearly 1 million people took part in Madrid alone to decry labor reforms, spending cuts and soaring unemployment in a country plunging into recession.
Demonstrations, overwhelmingly peaceful in most of the country, erupted into violence in a central portion of Barcelona. Scuffles also broke out earlier in Madrid.
Photo: EPA
Police shot smoke cannisters and fired rubber bullets into the ground so they would ricochet into people’s legs in Barcelona, television pictures showed, as a garbage container burned in a city street.
One group was “provoking confrontations and violent incidents,” a Catalan Interior Ministry spokesman said.
“They burned a two-story Starbucks cafe and another shop. It is out now. In the shop there is broken glass and they took out whatever they could burn,” the spokesman said.
Many garbage containers were also set alight, police said.
A spokesman for the Catalan government, Francesc Homs, said a minority had taken advantage of the protest.
“I don’t think this is linked in any way to the unions,” he said.
It was the first national strike to challenge Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was sworn in 100 days ago vowing to cut Spain’s 23 percent unemployment rate and fix its faltering finances.
The strike came a day before the conservative government adopts a budget set to axe tens of billions of euros in spending, adding to cuts that have already squeezed public services.
Spain’s major unions called the strike over the government’s Feb. 11 labor reform, which makes it cheaper to lay off staff and easier to cut salaries.
Minimum service agreements kept schools and hospitals open, ensuring 30 percent of trains and buses ran, and allowed some planes to fly.
Unions claimed a big turnout especially in factories, but Spanish interior ministry policy chief Cristina Diaz said fewer people took part than in the last general strike in September 2010.
Across Spain, police arrested 176 people, while 58 police and 46 civilians were injured, she said.
In one incident, a policeman hit a protester with his baton, cutting him above the eyebrow as he and others tried to stop buses leaving a station in southern Madrid, a photographer said.
In Barcelona, police said 21 people were arrested.
At a union rally in central Madrid, 56-year-old civil service worker, Angel Escolar, said the labor reform removed basic workers’ rights.
“They can change your hours, change your shifts, cut your salary and lay off people without justifying it. They are going to throw us out, and hire young people for less and with worse conditions,” he said.
Many commuters still crowded train stations and bus stops, saying they could not afford to lose a day’s pay.
“I can understand why they strike. The reform is just to fire people more easily and more cheaply, but this is not the time to lose work days. I am lucky to have a job,” said commuter Pedro Moreno, 32, who works at a supermarket.
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