Protesters clashed with police in Spain's capital on Tuesday as the government prepares a new round of unpopular austerity measures for the 2013 budget that will be announced on Thursday. Thousands gathered in Neptune plaza where they planned to form a human chain around parliament, surrounded by barricades, police trucks and more than 1,500 police in riot gear.
Television images showed the police beating some protesters with truncheons, in a brief, tense stand-off one block from parliament as police trucks tried to divide the crowd in two.
The protest, promoted over the Internet by different activist groups, was younger and more rowdy than recent marches called by labour unions. Protesters said they were fed up with cuts to public salaries and health and education.
"My annual salary has dropped by 8000 euros and if it falls much further I won't be able to make ends meet," said Luis Rodriguez, 36, a firefighter who joined the protest. He said he is considering leaving Spain to find a better quality of life.
With this year's budget deficit target looking untenable, the conservative government is now looking at such things as cuts in inflation-linked pensions, taxes on stock transactions, "green taxes" on emissions or eliminating tax breaks.
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