| Anti-austerity protesters clash with police in Spain |
MADRID Thousands of Spanish “indignant” protesters rallied against austerity cuts on Friday night before some of them clashed with police, who charged demonstrators with batons.
Surrounded by 20 police vans, they stood outside the headquarters of the Popular Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and shouted “resign, resign!” and “they are lining their pockets!”
Carrying signs that read “They call it democracy, and it isn’t”, they then headed for the headquarters of the opposition Socialist Party, which they also accuse of incompetence in the face of the crisis. However, they were pushed back by riot police before the demonstrators moved on in the direction of parliament. At least five people were arrested, journalists reported.
This week Rajoy — obliged by Brussels to order new cuts and tax increases to meet deficit-cutting commitments — revealed a new 65-billion-euro ($80-billion) austerity package.
It includes a sales tax rise, lower jobless benefits and public sector pay cuts, measures expected to add to the pain amid a 24.4-per cent unemployment rate that among the youth stands at 52 per cent. “With these cuts, they are ruining us,” charged 30-year-old protester Pedro Lopez, a former law student who said he now faces an employment freeze in the judicial bureaucracy.
Earlier on Friday, King Juan Carlos made a rare political comment, calling on the government not to forget Spain’s unemployed as it decides on austerity measures to battle debt.
“No one should be excluded from the outcome of the economic recovery that we all want and hope for,” the king told a cabinet meeting, which he has the constitutional right to chair but seldom does.
Agence France-Presse
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