RIOT police and anti-austerity protesters have clashed in Spain and Italy as anger boils over on a Europe-wide day of strikes and mass demonstrations.
General strikes in Spain and Portugal paralysed swathes of industry and hit road, rail and air transport on Wednesday, as people vented their frustration at state cut-backs.
Seething workers staged industrial walkouts in Italy, the eurozone's number three economy, and in Greece, fighting to avert default even after enacting an austerity squeeze of 13.5 billion euros ($A16.37 billion).
Against a background of peaceful industrial action and protests across Europe, however, police charged with batons in Spain and running street battles erupted in Italy.
In Madrid, riot police fired rubber bullets into the air and struck protesters with batons in the centra Plaza de Cibeles square, an AFP journalist at the scene said.
The clashes erupted when a police cordon blocked demonstrators from joining a rally in the square.
Earlier, police swung batons and pushed away hundreds of young protesters to prevent them blocking the nearby Gran Via avenue in the Spanish capital.
Crowds of protesters chanted "Abuse of power" and "More education, fewer police".
Police arrested 82 protesters across the country and 34 people were wounded, including 18 police, the government said.
In Italy, media said some 20 activists beat a riot police officer with a stick and baseball bats in Turin, while five officers were hurt during running street battles in central Milan.
"Europe is waking up today - from Rome to Madrid to Athens," said Mario Nobile, a 23-year-old university student in Rome.
"The 'PIGS' are rebelling!" he said, using a derogatory acronym for the most troubled eurozone economies of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain.
In Rome, the protest was peaceful except for a small group of students who threw stones and tried to break through police lines outside Prime Minister Mario Monti's offices.
Spanish unions said participation in the strike was massive, surpassing 85 per cent in some industrial sectors but the government said the impact was more modest with electricity usage down 15.8 per cent from normal.
Spain's Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said the strike was "not the right path" to reduce uncertainty and insisted that austerity was the only way out of the crisis.
In Portugal, the general strike brought Lisbon's metro service to a halt while ferries across the River Tagus and trains across the country ran skeleton services.
Both Spain and Portugal have legislation guaranteeing minimum services in essential industries.
But in Spain, Iberia, Iberia Express, Air Nostrum, Vueling, Air Europa and easyJet cut more than 600 flights including some 250 international routes. Ryanair said no flights had been scrapped yet.
Portugal's TAP said it was grounding more than 170 flights, most of them international.
Greece's unions are focused on the national crisis, rather than the European-wide action, and their protest was limited to a three-hour work stoppage and a rally in Athens.
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