In the culmination of the events called by the Campaign against the Europe of Capital, up to 500,000 people marched through the streets of Barcelona on March 16 to protest the summit of European leaders. Protesters were confronted with widespread police violence including the use of rubber bullets and tear gas, which was reportedly provoked by police infiltrators in the march.
Evidence of agent provocateurs: Video | Photos 1 | 2 | 3 | 4.
See BREAKING NEWS SATURDAY | Pictures: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
The previous day up to 20,000 people took part in decentralised actions all over the city. See BREAKING NEWS FRIDAY.
Photo library of the weekend's mobilisations.
The week of protests had started with 3000 people holding a reclaim the streets party on Sat 9th, and included a 100,000 trade unions demonstration on the 14th. 400,000 People also protested on the 10th against the further privatisation of the water supply, and the re-routing of the biggest river in the Spanish State planned under the the National Hydrological Plan.
RTS party: Report 1 | Report 2 | Photos 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Water demo: Report | Photos 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 and "the waters"
Trade union demo: Pictures 1 | Pictures 2
The EU Summit focused on areas such as the liberalisation of the electricity and gas markets, the integration of financial markets to further Europe's financial power, developing more flexible labour markets, privatisation of education and training programmes, widening the definition of terrorism to include many social movements and forms of protest.
As during previous protests, the Spanish Government had suspended the Schengen Treaty of people's 'free movement' within the EU for several days, so that more than 20 buses were turned back at the French/Spanish border. Border report and photo here.
For more info, reports and timeline of eventnts see:
IMC-Barcelona | IMC-UK special Barcelona Feature