MADRID – More than 100 000 protesters took to the streets in Spain blaming bankers and politicians for causing a financial crisis that forced the country to adopt painful spending cuts.
Demonstrators of all ages linked to a movement called the “indignants” also protested against crippling unemployment and a failure to take on government corruption.
The El Mundo newspaper, quoting police sources, said as many 40 000 protesters flooded streets in Madrid. In Barcelona, the nation’s second-largest city, police said 50 000 people turned out, while groups of several thousand demonstrators rallied in other cities.
Protesters assembled in several neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Madrid, then formed six columns and converged on the city centre. They tried to gather at parliament but were stopped by police, who had set up barricades and used 12 vans to block several major roads.
When it called for nationwide protests, the “indignants” movement insisted workers and the unemployed needed to make clear that they would not passively accept spending cuts to help ease Spain’s economic crisis.
Police and media said that in Valencia, Granada, Malaga and roughly 100 other cities and towns, demonstrators voiced outrage over welfare cuts, corruption and a current jobless rate of 21 per cent – the highest in the industrialised world.
The protest movement started in Madrid on May 15 and fanned out nationwide as word spread by Twitter and Facebook.
The demonstrations peaked ahead of May 22 local elections, when tens of thousands of people packed into squares in several towns and cities. (AFP)
