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12 March 2004
MADRID –At least two million Spaniards joined demonstrations Friday against the massacre in Madrid.
A fleet of free buses carried marchers in Madrid to come together under the same banner: ‘With the victims, with the Constitution and for the defeat of terrorism’.
They were joined by political leaders from all the main European countries.
They included the leader of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, the French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, John Prescott, the British deputy-prime minister. Portuguese premier José Manuel Durao Barroso and German foreign minister Joschka Fischer.
Similar marches were held in all the main cities across Spain from 7pm, attracting some five million more demonstrators, officials estimated.
Organisers asked marchers not to come with political placards but to use the event to remember the dead and to oppose the ‘enemies of democracy’.
Businesses closed early all across the country in order to prepare for the marches.
A huge food and drink festival in Barcelona, Alimentaria 2004, which has attracted 150,000 visitors, finished at 4pm.
[Copyright EFE with Expatica]
Subject: Spanish news