Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Lisbon and other Portuguese cities Saturday to protest against the government’s austerity measures aimed at rescuing the debt-hit eurozone nation.
The rallies were organised by a non-political movement which claimed 500,000 marched in the country’s capital and another 400,000 in the main northern city of Porto. There have been no official estimates of the crowds. But the mood of the crowd was clearly political, calling for new elections with banners declaring “Portugal to the polls!” and “If you fall asleep in a democracy, ou wake up in a dictatorship”.
