Yesterday marked the beginning of the celebration of the one-year anniversary of the Indignados movement in Spain, which helped to inspire Occupy Wall Street and like-minded efforts in many North American cities. Hundreds of thousands are participating in actions across Spain over the next few days, including some attempts at 're-occupation' of public squares, to mark the anniversary and to protest the Spanish government's austerity agenda. 

This is the final installment of our three-part report on May Day in Spain. Part I looked at the political context in Spain, where austerity has been met with the Indignados movement that has inspired people worldwide. Part II provided an account of the massive May Day protests in Spain, in which an estimated one million people took part. 

May 1 may have come and gone in Spain but the echoes of the mobilizations still remain.

This is Part II of rabble's coverage of May Day in Spain. In Part I, Archana Rampure explained the political context behind popular mobilizations of discontent such as the Indignados movement. Here, she reports on a May Day spent in a rally and march in Madrid, one of 80 actions across Spain. Union organizers report that this year's May Day protests were the largest in many years, with close to one million people taking part. 

Spain is not Greece, as everyone I meet here assures me.

However, the violent clashes in the streets of Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona over the introduction of labour reforms that would make it easier to fire workers still hang in the air here. April 29 saw demonstrations organized by the PSOE (the main left wing political party in Spain) in conjunction with trade unions. Forty thousand people were out on the streets of Madrid, and there were smaller but no less heartfelt demonstrations in at least 55 cities, towns and villages ranging from Avila to Zamora.

Austerity hurts

The Guardian reported Wednesday that demonstrators in Madrid's Puerta del Sol have voted to dismantle the tent city, without "agreeing on a basic set of demands." Does that mean the tent city, and the "Indignant" movement more broadly, have failed?