Hundreds of thousands of Argentines took to the streets to express outrage at cuts to public higher education under President Javier Milei’s budget-cutting government, protest organizers say.
Accompanied by teachers, parents and former students from the 57 state universities in the South American country ravaged by the economic crisis, the students stood up on Tuesday “in defense of free public university education”, they said.
Trade unions, opposition parties and private universities supported the protests in Buenos Aires and other major cities, such as Córdoba, in one of the biggest demonstrations so far against the austerity measures introduced since Milei took office in December.
Police said around 100,000 people turned out in the capital alone, while organizers put the number at around half a million, which paralyzed the city center for hours.
A teachers union reported one million protesters across the country.
Third-year medical student Pablo Vicenti, 22, told the Agence French-Presse news agency in Buenos Aires that he was outraged by the government’s “brutal attack” on the university system.
“They want to end financing with a false story that there is no money. There is, but they choose not to spend it on public education,” he said.
Milei won the elections in November, promising to use a chainsaw on public spending and reduce the budget deficit to zero.
To this end, his government reduced subsidies for transport, fuel and energy, despite wage earners losing a fifth of their purchasing power.
Thousands of civil servants lost their jobs and Milei faced numerous anti-austerity protests.
His government dismissed Tuesday’s protests as “political.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
