Government, trade unions and business associations evaluate general strike

The ninth general strike in Spain's democratic history and the second faced by Mariano Rajoy's government went ahead with the usual discrepancy over participation figures, with the trade unions claiming a 77% following (9.1 of the 11.9 million workers called out on strike), whilst the government talks of "a normal day".

According to the Interior Ministry, just 800,000 people took to the streets to protest in Spain yesterday, whilst the unions said the massive participationwas enough to make the Government rethink its austerity measures.

148 separate major protests were held across Spain yesterday. The unions boasted attendance of over a million at the two biggest demonstrations - in Madrid (a figure the government put at just 35,000) and Barcelona (where 110,000 took part according to the Urban Police). There were massive walk-outs in Tenerife, Córdoba, Granada, Málaga, Seville, Valencia, Vigo, Soria, Santander, Cadiz, Ciudad Real, Santiago, Huelva, Murcia, Palma, Bilbao, Ourense and A Coruña as well.

A total of 142 were arrested during the course of the day, and 74 were injured in clashes, including many police officers.

Energy consumption dropped by 12.7% compared with a normal working day.

Elsewhere in Europe there were similar massive demonstrations. The Portuguese CGTP union said their general strike (the third so far this year) was "one of the biggest" ever organised in Portugal. There were other walk-outs and demonstrations in Paris, Athens, Rome, Brussels and Berlin.