Rallies were held in major cities across the country at the invitation of the far-right Vox party, amid growing social discontent with inflation, which has reached nearly 8% at its highest level in 35 years, leaving many families struggling to pay their bills.
Several thousand gathered in front of Madrid’s city hall, waving Spanish flags and chanting slogans calling for the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. They shouted, “Sanchez, you trash, cut our bills!”
“We have the worst government. It’s not a government, it’s a misery factory (…) plundering and extorting workers through arbitrary taxes. We will not leave the streets until the illegitimate government is brought down,” Vox leader Santiago Abascal said to cheers from the crowd.
“This government is taking everything from us,” protester Annabelle, 56, who did not give her last name, told AFP.
“They raise electricity and gas prices and say it’s because of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, but this is a lie. It was like this before,” she added.
In February, inflation was 7.6 percent year on year, the highest in 35 years.
Last year, energy prices rose 72 percent in Spain, one of the highest increases in the European Union. Also, prices have risen even more since the events in Ukraine.
On Monday, Spanish truck drivers began an indefinite strike due to high fuel prices, which caused road closures and demonstrations, which led to supply problems.
The price hike also prompted the General Workers Union and the Union of Workers’ Committees, Spain’s two largest, to call a nationwide strike on March 23.
The government is set to unveil measures to reduce energy and fuel prices on March 29.
Minister Felix Bolanos accused the far right of complicating the situation.
“They are not patriots, they are rioters,” he told Spanish state television. Sanchez is on a European tour to press for a joint EU response to rising energy prices.
Madrid has been urging its European partners for months to change the mechanism linking electricity prices to the gas market, and these calls have not yet been responded to, despite the support of Paris.
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