Tens of thousands of people marched in cities across Spain on Thursday in the largest protests to date against massive spending cuts and tax increases pushed through to obtain a bailout for the country’s banks. Demonstrators took to the streets as Spanish lawmakers approved a new round of austerity measures in parliament, including a higher sales tax and cuts to the wages of public workers. Spanish union leader Ignacio Fernández Toxo said the new austerity measures threaten Spain’s future.

Ignacio Fernández Toxo: “This is a true aggression against the workers out of work, against the workers from the public sector, against the self-employed, against the professionals, against the middle class of the society who will go straight to poverty as a result of this plan. This is a plan of budget cuts that goes against Spain’s economy. In economic terms, it’s suicidal.”

In Madrid, Thursday’s protests ended in unrest when police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators at the close of a massive march.