Students join Madrid teachers in protests against layoffs

Madrid students joined teachers on Thursday in their ongoing street demonstrations to protest the cutbacks and layoffs in the education sector that are being proposed by the regional Popular Party (PP) government of Esperanza Aguirre.

A group of students from the Avenida de los Toreros school in Salamanca marched in front of their institution, banging pots and pans and shouting slogans such as "goodbye to public education, hello to private teaching." One month after the start of the mass mobilizations and five days of strikes by teachers, and negotiations between unions and the Madrid government are still far off.

During a heated regional assembly debate on Thursday, Aguirre accused the United Left (IU) bloc of fomenting the strikes. She reiterated that any proposed job cutbacks are "lies being spread" by leftist groups.