Spanish workers staged a general strike on Wednesday for the first time in 14 years, protesting the rising rents and stagnant wages that have become central issues in the national election to be held this month.
Unions said millions of workers participated in the walkout, while hundreds of thousands of Spaniards joined rallies in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and other cities in the evening.
Early on Wednesday, protesters blocked roads in Madrid, set up picket lines outside major factories in Catalonia and disrupted transportation across Spain.
Police officers wielding shields and batons forced hundreds of demonstrators away from the Gran Vía, the central thoroughfare in Madrid, which rally goers had blocked. The anger of protesters in the capital was directed largely at “rentistas” — a Spanish term for people who live off rental income.
Later in the day, during a march through central Madrid that drew 120,000 protesters according to the government, demonstrators chanted in a festive mood, “One jump, two jumps, whoever doesn’t jump is a rentista.”
Clashes with the police erupted in Barcelona, where a group of masked protesters broke away from the crowd after the demonstration ended, according to local news media. The group smashed several shop windows, threw pyrotechnic devices at police officers and tried unsuccessfully to storm an Apple Store, the reports said.
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Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt