Spain strike ends in violence

Police fired rubber bullets to disperse crowds in downtown Barcelona on Thursday as tens of thousands of people took to the streets around Spain in support a general strike.

Hooded youths threw rocks at windows and set fire to rubbish bins in Spain's second largest city. Television images showed demonstrators throwing rocks at riot police vans, and hitting them as they sped near the crowds.

In Valencia, demonstrators set light to mattresses on a highway, slowing traffic, and in the eastern city of Murcia a Molotov cocktail was hurled at a police car.

A total of 176 protesters were arrested across the country, and 104 people, including 58 police officers, were injured in clashes.

The protests coincided with the first general strike in Spain in 18 months and came a day before Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is expected to announce spending cuts worth tens of billions of euros as part of a package of controversial labor reforms.

"The people will say whether they are resigned to accepting the reforms," Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, leader of one of Spain's biggest unions, CCOO, said earlier on Thursday in reference to the collecting crowds of protestors.

Anger at deficit-busting plans

Unions are protesting the controversial deficit-reduction reform package, featuring painful cuts, tax hikes and banking reforms, being pushed through by Spain's new conservative Popular Party government, which came into office only 100 days ago.

The labor-specific measures are intended to ease Spain's unemployment problems and make the country more competitive. It will become easier for firms to fire employees and enable companies to implement unilateral wage cuts. Nearly a quarter of Spaniards are unemployed, the highest jobless rate in the eurozone. The figure is almost 50 percent for young people.

Despite opposition the Spanish government insists that it will not waver in its commitment to the reform plans.

"The question here is not whether the strike is honored by many or few, but rather whether we get out of the crisis," Finance Minister Cristobal Montoro said. "That is what is at stake, and the government is not going to yield."

Spain's new Popular Party government, which won an absolute majority against the Socialists in December, is feeling confident enough not to worry too much about its critics for now, according to observers, such as business professor Pin: "There are two elements: Spanish voters and international investors and right now the government is governing for the investors."

ccp, sej/ncy (AP, Reuters)