Tear gas, car fires and bloody clashes as Argentinians revolt against austerity
A bloody clash between thousands of anti-government protesters and police has broken out in Argentina.
Riot police unleashed water cannons and tear gas to disperse protesters who set cars and bins ablaze and threw sticks, stones and Molotov cocktails just metres from Congress, where lawmakers were meeting to debate a highly contentious bill.
Lawmakers are voting on state overhaul and tax bills proposed by President Javier Milei.
The vote is the most serious test to date of the libertarian leader's vision of governance and change.
The protesters gathered to urge lawmakers to reject Milei's program of harsh austerity and economic deregulation.
Argentina is in the grips of its worst economic crisis in two decades, with the annual inflation rate hitting 287 per cent in March.
To overhaul the beleaguered economy, Milei has slashed public sector wages, eliminated thousands of state jobs, frozen public works projects and and cut subsidies.
He has also devalued the nosediving peso currency by over 50 per cent, helping it stabilise but causing the prices of basic goods to skyrocket in measures that have proven brutal for the struggling lower and middle classes.
Earlier in the day, a carnival atmosphere prevailed around Congress, with protesters blasting trumpets, dancing and buying beer and grilled meat from impromptu street barbecues.
However, this quickly turned as crowds jostled and shoved against a column of police armed with shields and batons.
Security forces backed by armoured cars with mounted water cannons pushed back protesters hurling flaming bottles and other objects.
Despite the wintry weather, hundreds of police blasted water cannons and tear gas at crowds that surged toward cordoned-off streets, and at one point, trampled over a police barricade.
Ensuing scuffles between police and protesters injured at least 20 officers, authorities said.
Protesters threw Molotov cocktails at bikes and set ablaze a car belonging to a local radio station.
Security forces said they arrested 15 people.
Police used pepper spray to clear a line of demonstrators, sending at least four opposition lawmakers to the hospital, according to the left-wing Peronist party, Unión por la Patria.
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