There are two types of horsemeat: The kind you can eat, which many Europeans do, and the kind you can’t. And in recent days in Europe, there’ve been two types of fraud around it. First, passing off the non-edible horsemeat as edible.

That’s what happened in Ireland, investigators say, where horses injected with a medicine poisonous to humans had their papers doctored to pass food chain inspections.

Stephen Philpott, the chief executive of the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in Ireland, says there was a large demand from the European mainland for horsemeat – a demand couldn’t be met by the traditional UK suppliers.

“Between them all they conspired to work out a system to get horses which were unfit for human consumption,” he said. “To get them re-microchipped. We reckon there could be as many as 70,000 horses unaccounted for in Ireland.”

As that scandal unfolds, the second: passing off horsemeat, edible or not, as ground beef. So far horse has been found in major brands of frozen lasagna, for example, implicating retailers and suppliers across the continent. The UK’s Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, says Europe is quickly developing a credibility problem.

“It is unacceptable that people have been deceived in this way,” he said. “There appears to have been criminal activity in an attempt to defraud the consumer. The prime responsibility for dealing with this lies with retailers and food producers.”

Paterson said they need to demonstrate that they’ve taken all necessary actions to ensure the integrity of the food chain in his country.

Europe does already have high standards for food safety, says Chris Elliot, an expert on the subject at Queen’s University in Belfast. He said where the system breaks down – and where fraud is easiest – is with processed foods, which he called a complex business.

“We take different types of meats and different types of materials from all over the world,” he said. “They’ll come across many different continental borders. And they end up in a processing factory, and then on a supermarket shelf.”

To find out where that material came from in the first place, he said, is close to impossible.

Which means tracking down the people responsible for the horsemeat fraud will take time. One line of investigation leads to French suppliers. But they point their fingers at Romanian slaughterhouses. Stephan Le Foll, France’s Agriculture Minister, said investigations will be tough, because the procurement system uses very complicated commercial routes.

“I’ve even got the impression that a Cypriot trader subcontracted to a Dutch trader who then himself sub-contracted,” he said. “And now we get to Romania and Poland. So there too is work to be done to get out of this fog.”

The fog obscures more than just the origin of meat, says Chris Elliot. And it reaches well beyond Europe.

“One of the great food frauds at the moment is olive oil,” he said. “Then there’s massive amounts of fraud in fish. Honey is implicated. Milk, fruit juices. It happens with many types of food.”

Elliot says the problem could be fixed with stricter regulations and controls. But that would drive food prices up 10 to 20 percent.

Butcher Antonio Gomez says the solution to the meat crisis is to buy local. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

Meanwhile there’s one sector in Europe offering another solution: the “eat local” folks.

Like Antonio Gomez, the owner of a family-run butcher shop in Barcelona. He said small outfits like his get their meat from nearby producers whom they’ve known all our lives.

“And it’s all certified,” he said, showing the forms that come in with each butchered animal. “This tells you where the creature was born, raised, what it ate and when it was slaughtered.”

There’s no chance horse or any other meat can sneak its way into his display case, he said, pretending to be something else.

But getting convictions in such cases is often difficult.

The World’s Gerry Hadden examines why it’s so hard to prove wrongdoing when it comes to betting on soccer.

For Carla Bruni, being First Lady wasn’t a whole lot of fun.

In a 2010 TV interview, she lamented how cruel the press was being toward her and especially her husband, the president. “Do you know any journalist who’s been neutral when it comes to Nicolas Sarkozy?” She asked.

French media have been speculating that Bruni will seek revenge on her new CD, called “Little French Songs.” But this first single doesn’t go on the offensive. It’s a nostalgic look back. To the 1970s.

It’s called “Keith and Anita.” As in Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and his former girlfriend the model Anita Pallenberg. The two became legendary symbols of the post-hippy, sex-drugs-and-rock n’ roll era.

It’s not an accident that Keith and Anita was released Monday. It was husband Nicolas Sarkozy’s 58th birthday. Probably also not an accident how it avoids media bashing.

Which may be why Bruni’s agent, Bertrand de Labbey, has been making the rounds on French radio, urging journalists to forget Bruni’s time as first lady, and refocus, as she’s doing, on her art.

Artistically speaking, Bruni’s single, sort of sounds like a jazzed up version of her break-out hit “ Quelqu’un m’a Dit” over a decade ago.

So if you liked the old stuff, the new should please. The new CD is out April 1st.

On it Bruni pays tribute to some of the masters of French chanson, and there’s at least one love song to her hubby, who she calls Raymond. “My Raymond might wear a tie,” she sings, but underneath he’s a pirate.

A pirate she’s out to defend, with some choice words for the media. French news outlets report this same song attacks them for making her life as first lady miserable.

His dishonesty casts a shadow over an entire sport, even its honest competitors but as The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from Barcelona, good guys can finish first.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with The World’s Gerry Hadden in Paris about how the conflict is playing there.

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Marco Werman: Islamist leaders in Mali have responded to the French military offensive against them by threatening retaliation. The Islamists have vowed to strike back at the heart of France. The World’s Gerry Hadden is in Paris and he says there are few outward signs in the French capital of a heightened security alert.

Gerry Hadden: There isn’t a giant concern about the Islamist rebels in Mali fulfilling their pledge to strike in the heart of France at the moment. Today in Paris, on the streets, you’re not really seeing any sort of built-up police or military presence. There are virtually no protests planned for the French military intervention in Mali. There’s no sense at all that people are upset about it. I just happen to take the train today from Spain and, from the Spanish border all the way to Paris, sitting across from me were two men with military security uniforms on. At one point, one of them jumped up and began questioning passengers about an apparently abandoned bag at the end of the car. It turned out to belong to somebody who was still on the train. But, these guys didn’t want to comment to me about whether they were on the train specifically because there are worries about attacks on French infrastructure or transportation systems. The worry is over the so-called ‘lone wolf’ sorts of attacks like the one we saw last year in Toulouse in which seven people were killed. Those are the kinds of attacks that are very difficult to stop.

Werman: So, this French muscular intervention in Mali isn’t exactly reflected in police concerns on the ground in France.

Hadden: I wouldn’t say that. I think it’s just not visible. The French security forces often work without uniforms, undercover, and I’m sure that in the train station… I came into Gare de Lyon this afternoon – one of the main train stations in Paris. It was very difficult to see any particular build-up in police or military presence but you can be guaranteed that every corner of that station was under surveillance. France has been at terror alert level ‘Red’ since 2005 actually, so that’s quite high. So, there’s already the sense that the French intelligence service are working around the clock, domestically and overseas, to prevent attacks.

Werman: Why such an elevated terrorist threat level in France since 2005, and is France really using the color-coded threat level still?

Hadden: Well, France has the largest, mostly population in Europe and there is always that fear that any French involvement in efforts to rein in or curb terrorist organizations around the world could produce a homegrown backlash.

Werman: How is Francois Hollande perceived in France, generally?

Hadden: He is perceived and has a reputation of being somewhat weak especially when it comes to foreign affairs. However, since last week’s intervention in Mali, he’s actually seen his popularity rise quite dramatically. There’s just a recent poll that’s been published of a 1,000 people, and 63 percent actually savored the French intervention in Mali. So, that’s a big boost for Hollande who has, as I say, struggled with a reputation for being wishy-washy and weak especially on foreign affairs.

Werman: The World’s Gerry Hadden in Paris; thanks so much.

Hadden: My pleasure Marco.

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Now a carrot rebellion may be underway. It started at small theater in the northeast Spanish town of Bescano. Bescano isn’t on a lot of tourist maps. But last October it made the news as far away as New Zealand. Because one night, instead of selling tickets for a play, it sold carrots. For the same price. Carrot-holders could then get in to the performance for free.

It was a protest against the tripling of the sales tax on cultural events. And a way to skirt it; tax on produce is much lower – 4 percent compared to 21 percent.

Quim Marce at the Bescano Theater. To protest Spain’s new tax on cultural events, he sold carrots instead of tickets. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

The theater’s director, Quim Marce, said he and staff thought for a long time about what to use as a substitute ticket. They thought of pens. But taxes have gone up on schools supplies too. Then they struck on vegetables.

“Of all the produce, the carrot struck us as the most ridiculous,” Quim said, on a recent visit. “We were hoping to get local media attention. But the whole world came.”

By all measures, it was a perfect protest – and publicity stunt. But Marce did it just once, afraid tax authorities would fine him. Now six months later, he said the crisis has only worsened. Journalists have long forgotten him, his public has dwindled, promised government subsidies haven’t materialized. The Bescano is barely staying open. This year might not be the last, Marce said, but only because the town pays for some shows.

“Well likely go from hosting about 50 events,” he said, “to just hosting the end of the school year celebration and the town Christmas pageant.”

Marce said since the tax on theater tickets went up, sales are down by 40 percent nationally. Some of the country’s most important theaters are laying off staff and threatening to close altogether.

But hardest hit are small theater companies, like one called Pocacosa.

Pocacosa’s two principals, Meritxell Yanes and Elena Martinell, are currently staging a play for kids – about a cow that wants to sing opera.

Between shows Yanes took a reporter to her home, a small space above an abandoned tanning factory. There, she said, she keeps warm by the heat of a pellet stove, and eats lettuce and onions she grows out back, to save money.

Elena Martinell and Meritxell Yanes, with a colleague, in the abandoned tanning factory that they use in summer as a rehearsal space. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

“Up till this year I was taking home about $2,100 a month,” she said. “Now I’m earning half that.”

Spain is in the fifth year of a crisis involving huge public debt and a property crash. Yanes said she’s glad at least that Spaniards have found creative, rather than violent, ways to voice their discontent with austerity measures.

“Each protest is like a mushroom,” she said. “It grows, dies but another springs up. We’re civilized. We’re not out trashing the town, or burning trash bins.”

That does happen at some of Spain’s bigger anti-austerity marches. But Spaniards have also found more offbeat ways to speak out against austerity, tax hikes and the ensuing misery. Besides the locksmith boycott in Pamplona, there are individual drivers who are refusing to pay increased toll charges on highways, then posting their acts of civil disobedience on a popular Facebook page.

And while some angry mobs occasionally storm banks, last week a group of musicians snuck into a crowded unemployment office – not so much to protest, as to brighten some faces.

Suddenly a man began playing the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” on a clarinet. Other instruments appeared, and a singer. The song made people smile and sing along, even though the numbers in Spain aren’t promising. Unemployment is set to rise again this year, surpassing 26 percent.

For workers in the theater world, the hope is that more venues will sell carrots to keep prices down. And the idea may just be catching on. A concert hall in Zaragoza just did it, and a comedy festival is planting carrots now, to sell as tickets at their events in the spring.

A poster in Cercs’ town hall announced a dinner and dance for Saint Barbara, the patron saint of miners. There are no more miners in town, but the folks who remain try to keep the tradition alive. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

I pointed this out to Cercs’ deputy Mayor, an affable guy named Jesus Calderer, and he smiled with weariness. Yes, he told me just before our interview, ‘Santa Barbara’ was once busy here. Back in the days when the local lignite mine was employing 3,000 people, and the coal-fire power plant another 300.

Today, he told me, both the plant and the mine are closed. Saint Barbara’s flock has been severely culled.

Still, the poster, which featured a black and white photo of a helmeted miner, piqued my interest; it listed the date and time of this year’s celebration, and mentioned a dinner and a dance up at ‘the colony.’

Calderer explained that the colony was the miner’s settlement another 20 minutes up the mountain highway. After our interview, I made the drive. Along the way I passed an old castle-like mansion, set nearly as imposingly on a ridge above Cercs as the coal plant itself. The mansion, I would learn, was built by the Basque businessman who once owned the mine. Out front hung a huge for-sale banner – another sign of the times.

(Photo: Gerry Hadden)

Inside, a guide named Montse told me that only a handful of people still lived up here. “Everyone who can leaves,” she said. “My whole family worked in the mines, except for a cousin who went to study in Barcelona.” Even just a generation ago, she told me, when you finished your mandatory public education – at age 12 – you either went to work for the mine or you left.

Montse said she barely remembered the Saint Barbara festivities from when she was a small child. “Better to talk to Ferran,” she told me.

Ferran was Ferran Perarnao, a retired, camera-shy miner with a thick head of white hair and a beer in hand. I met him up at the colony’s bar, called, of course, Santa Barbara’s. I asked Ferran if he could describe the atmosphere of old, on the day of his patron saint.

“Ooooh,” he began, standing up with some trouble, “it was something else. The biggest party of the year. We miners looked forward to it more than any other day.”

For starters, it was a rare day off, he said. In the afternoon there was a mass, then people started piling into this very bar. “There wasn’t a better celebration in the entire region,” he said. “We had all of the best orchestras. We had such a great time.”

Ferran said he still lives up here at the colony, because his daughter works here and he wants to be close to her. He’s one of just a handful of miners who’s stuck around.

“There used to be a ton of people up here,” he said sadly. “But then they stopped offering work to young people. And so everyone left.”

(Photo: Gerry Hadden)

A stark, sad place all around, I thought, with its inescapable air of abandonment. But what made it even sadder is this fact: though this mine is closed, and mines across the country are losing the government subsidies that kept them open for years, Spain is actually burning more coal than ever.

It’s importing it, from the US and elsewhere. The reason: natural gas prices in Europe have gone so high that coal is a cheaper option. And nearly five years into a brutal economic crisis, cheapness is everything. Even if it pollutes.

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When my partner Anne and I moved to Barcelona eight years ago, we decided we would send our (future) kids to local schools. Schools that teach almost exclusively in the Catalan language. I didn’t speak a word of Catalan and neither did Anne.

We could have opted for one of two French Lycees in town. We could have chosen one of several American or British schools. That way, their education would have been in one of two languages we both speak.

But we went local because we wanted to become a part of our community. We wanted our kids to belong here. At “foreign” language schools, you’re always an expat. You don’t know the kids in your neighborhood. And your friends at school inevitably move away after a few years, when their parents’ bosses transfer them elsewhere.

That’s not the way either of us grew up, and we didn’t want that for our children. We’re also polyglots (I majored in German in college) with a “the more languages the merrier” philosophy. Our kids are now on the road to speaking, naturally, without blinking an eye, four languages.

Eight years on, however, their dad still doesn’t speak Catalan. For some Catalans, that’s an offense. They feel snubbed. How dare I not embrace the language – the most important and cherished aspect of Catalan identity?

But the majority of our Catalan friends couldn’t care less. Many have even congratulated us for having mastered that other official language in Catalonia: Spanish.

Students wait for the start of their first day at an elementary school in Catalonia (Reuters/Enrique Calvo)

This debate is sometimes tedious. Often it is outright hateful, with the vitriol spewing from both sides.

In the meantime, as I say, I haven’t learned it. I can read it, and understand most of it, but I don’t speak it. Haven’t made much effort. The reason isn’t political. It has more to do with water than with politics or philosophy or identity.

Water seeks the easiest route on its journey to wherever it’s going. Language is the same. People learn foreign languages for one of just two reasons, and the first follows the water principal. The second is what happens to water when it spills into a geyser.

Reason One: Necessity. You learn Catalan or Mandarin or Tagalog because you have no choice. You have moved to a country where no one speaks your native language and you have to eat. You can’t go to market, point at produce and nod forever. Also, you have to work. You have to make friends.

In Catalonia I can do all those things without speaking Catalan. Like water, I take the easiest route. Everyone speaks Spanish. Whether they like it or not. Only once in a very long while will a Catalan simply refuse to talk to me in Spanish. This reality drives some Catalans crazy – and it’s led to public campaigns to encourage Catalans not to switch to Spanish in conversations with folks like me. But that hasn’t really worked, because ultimately people realize it’s rude to answer someone who’s speaking to you in a language you know – by using a language they don’t.

Reason Two: Love. Love makes water go in any direction it wants. It can shoot it hundreds of feet into the air, against gravity – even turn it into a gas if it feels like it. I fell in love with someone who happens to be French. Which is why, over these eight years in Catalonia, my French has gotten pretty good, while my level of Catalan has barely budged.

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And as The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from Spain, that means trouble for the European Union’s commitment to cutting CO2 emissions to combat global climate change.

What happened in the mountain village of Cercs in northeast Spain was supposed to be an environmental success story. Last year authorities here shut down a huge old coal-fired power plant that had loomed over the village for nearly half a century. The town’s deputy mayor Jesus Calderer says it was once Spain’s most polluting coal facility, an ecological disaster whose acid rain was killing local forests.

The Cercs coal-fired plant was also a huge emitter of C02, the main pollutant linked to global warming. The pollution was so bad that the plant’s director was convicted of environmental negligence. That was a first in Spain. And closing it was part of a wider move to discourage coal use in Spain. The government recently shut a second coal burning plant, in the north. And this summer it cut subsidies for coal mining, a move that sparked violent, two month long strikes.

Despite all these tough moves, though, coal use in Spain is actually up. In 2012 the country burned 15 percent more coal than the year before.

Why? Brian Ricketts, the head of Europe’s coal association Euracoal says natural gas has recently gotten very expensive in Europe, “and coal is competing very nicely.”

Ricketts says gas is more expensive in Europe because much of it must be piped in, mainly from Russia. It’s the opposite from what’s been happening in the U.S. recently, where a boom in shale gas has caused prices to plummet relative to coal, and coal use to fall sharply.

Ironically, the U.S. is now exporting the coal it doesn’t need to Europe.

That’s in part why coal use is up, across the continent. Ricketts says it was up 10 percent in Germany last year, 12 percent in Italy, and 40 percent in the UK. And he says the economic crisis battering southern Europe has completely sidelined concerns about greenhouse gas emissions.

“Of course. Spain, Greece, Italy, are all facing severe austerity measures,” Rickets says. “In Greece the decision has been to stop importing gas. That means local lignite (soft coal mining is up, because the country can’t afford gas.”

Not to mention costly investments in renewable energy. Until recently, the trend across Europe was toward subsidizing renewables. It’s partly why Europe has been leading the U.S. and the rest of the world in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Union pledged under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions by 20% from 1990s levels by the year 2020. And the EU’s own figures show that emissions in the block were trending down over the last two decades.

But in 2010 they began rising again. And the rise could continue if coal remains relatively cheap.

Here in Spain there is virtually no new help for wind or solar or biomass projects. And that has places like Cercs in a bind. Officials had hoped their shuttered coal plant could be converted to cleaner biomass. But there’s no money for that now. So the plant, once a symbol of pollution, stands instead as a symbol of economic decline.

The town lost some 300 jobs connected directly to the plant. And Deputy Mayor Calderer says it created a domino effect, wiping out other businesses, including the local coal mine.

The town has just 1,300 residents, today, Calderer says. “But when the mine was open it alone provided work for three thousand people. It was huge. We’ve lost so much.”

It’s the kind of economic sacrifice that fewer E.U. countries seem willing or able to make these days. And that means achieving Europe’s lofty goal of reducing global greenhouse emissions is proving that much more difficult.

Spain 2000 President Jose Luis Roberto says he has tried to form alliances with other Spanish right-wing groups but squabbling has always undone any alliances. The movement's fragmentation is one of the reasons Spain's far right remains without representation at the national or even regional level. (Photo: Gerry Hadden)

Earlier this week we reported on the republication of Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, in Germany, and the rise in neo-Naziism there. The radical right has made gains in other places too, especially in Greece, where the Golden Dawn party now has members in Parliament. But in Spain, the far right is faring less well. Extremists have failed to capitalize on the economic crisis and joblessness to gain followers. Although you could get the opposite impression in a small, Mediterranean village called Silla.

Silla is really traditional. Flower shops advertise free home delivery on Catholic Saints days. On a recent morning a small car circulates, announcing the death of a neighbor, and the date and time of the funeral. And outside the mayor’s office a man wearing a sandwich board sells daily lottery tickets.

Lottery venders are great people to talk to. They tend to know everyone, all the gossip. Jose Antonio Gutierrez told me a lot of people here are out of work. And that folks are increasingly blaming foreigners. He said that if there’s no work, Spain shouldn’t let outsiders in.

“My mother worked for years in France,” he said. “And when her contract was up, she got a kick in the pants and a one-way ticket home. Period. There’s no other way.”

Only about 13 percent of Silla are immigrants, about the national average. But sentiment is strong against them, in part because of something very non-traditional that happened in the town last spring: A radical, far-right political party, called Spain 2000, won two seats on the town council – a first in Spain. Spain 2000’s main slogan is, “Spaniards First.”

“Our fundamental principle is to give priority to Spaniards,” said party President Jose Luis Roberto, sitting at the group’s headquarters about 20 minutes up the coast from Silla, in Valencia.

“If you live in an apartment building and there’s a crisis and you don’t have enough for all the neighbors,” he said, “you feed your own family first. Every country in the world follows the same logic, he says.

Spain 2000 has a privately funded non-profit here that runs a homeless shelter and a cafeteria. Roberto said they offer no aid to foreigners as long as Spaniards are waiting in line. That’s earned the party a lot of monikers: racist, xenophobic, fascist. Roberto said Spain 2000 is simply “preferentialist.”

Whatever the case, Spain 2000 and other far-right Spanish groups are using a formula that’s brought extremists in other European countries some power, especially during this crisis: providing social services along with a patriotic message.

But while Spanish groups have adopted the method, they haven’t found the same success as, say, Greece’s Golden Dawn or France’s National Front. In fact, no Spanish extreme-right politician has risen higher than town council, and even those seats you can count on your fingers.

One reason, Jose Luis Roberto admitted, is in-fighting. He said that while his party has a lot in common with other Spanish groups – such as a rejection of Islam and free market capitalism – other issues keep them divided.

“The problem is that politics is for idiots,” he said. “A while back we joined a party called the Spanish Alternative. But they have a distinctly Catholic approach. So they backed out saying [they] couldn’t work with someone who ‘defends whores.’”

That’s a reference to Roberto’s former day-job, as head of an association of Spanish brothels. Prostitution is legal in Spain.

This brings up the problem of who joins these groups. Roberto himself has been dogged by controversy for years. He’s been accused in an attempted bombing, and of various hate crimes. The charges have always been thrown out. Another member of Spain 2000 is still under indictment resulting from a sting operation against neo-Nazis.

One activist in Valencia, who didn’t want his name used out of fear of retaliation, said this proves Spanish ultra-right parties have at least indirect links to violent groups – even if they deny it. He said that in recent years several small explosive devices have been set off in the Valencia area. The targets: people or institutions on the left.

“It’s the same across Europe,” he said. “The extreme right will never admit any support or sympathy for fascists and neo-Nazis, especially not in Spain. With our fascist past.”

Spain was ruled by the fascist general Francisco Franco for four decades, until his death and the transition to democracy. Even the suggestion that today’s far right is an off-shoot of Franco-style fascism turns many Spaniards away.

For other supporters of far right ideology though, reaching all the way back to Franco isn’t necessary. They can turn to the party currently in power in Spain, the center-right Popular Party or PP. The PP is huge, sort of an umbrella group for conservatives. And has its extremist wing.

Last summer Xavier Garcia Albiol, Popular Party mayor of the Spanish town of Badalona, essentially stole Spain 2000’s thunder. He told reporters that because of the crisis, he would no longer be offering social services to newly arrived immigrants.

But analysts say you can’t write off Spain’s far right just because the movement is sluggish today. Before this economic crisis no one imagined Greece’s far right Golden Dawn would ever amount to much. Today it has 18 seats in Parliament.

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The book’s copyright has been controlled by the state of Bavaria for decades but that copyright is set to expire in 2015, as The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from Munich.

The biggest protests took place in some of the nations hardest-hit by the financial crisis, like Italy, Greece and Spain.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the World’s Gerry Hadden in the Spanish city of Barcelona.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. While Washington is in the grip of high-level negotiations to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff in Europe, you could argue some countries that have already fallen off a fiscal cliff, are now trying to climb back up. Across Europe today, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest government spending cuts and rising unemployment. It was a coordinated day of strikes and demonstrations throughout the European Union. The biggest protest took place in some of the nations hardest hit by the crisis, like Italy, Greece, and Spain. The World’s Gerry Hadden is in the Spanish city of Barcelona. Just how widespread are these strikes Jerry? Give us a sense.

Gerry Hadden: Just about everywhere in Europe, there have been at least protests of support. The strongest action has happened in Southern Europe, where we’ve seen four general strikes; Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. But again, there’s been solidarity movements and street marches all across Europe.

Werman: Right, and how vigorous are these protests. Are they peaceful or violent?

Hadden: There have been clashes in Milan. There were some clashes early this morning in Madrid, when the wholesale food market opened up and the picketers blocked the entrances there. There have been about five dozen people arrested so far in Madrid where the main protest is going on, but I wouldn’t characterize this as particularly violent.

Werman: So, what do these protesters, these strikers, want their leaders to hear, both their leaders in their home countries, and the leaders, the European Union leaders.

Hadden: Their message is very simple, Austerity doesn’t work. They all argue that the patient is being killed off by the medicine. Greece. Spain. Especially Portugal, They’ve all bought into the austerity plan that’s been, they would say, foisted on them by the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank. And none of those three countries, for example, can point to any turnaround in their sinking economies. All their economies are still contracting. Unemployment is rising across the board. What they’re saying is, and what their union leaders are trying to say to Brussels is, ‘This isn’t working. What we need to get our books back in order is growth’. And cutting spending is killing jobs. It’s causing hardship for families. It means cutbacks in health-care and education. It means pensions being slashed. It means retirement ages being raised. Some of these reforms, unions would agree, are necessary, but given all together at the same time and with such harshness, they say it’s just destroying economies instead of helping them to turn around.

Werman: So, for these strikers, will these protests be anything more than kind of a ritual, or is there a chance that Brussels might actually listen to them and say, ‘They’ve got a point there, these austerity plans aren’t really working’.

Hadden: I think the message has been heard by Brussels. If you take the case of Greece, they’ve held twenty strikes, some of them general strikes, in the last three years. Twenty. And you’d be hard-pressed to argue that Greek workers are better off today than they were three years ago, I mean, their economy is destroyed and getting worse every single day. With that said, politicians pay close attention to these kind of protests, and you could also argue, well, the Greeks- it looks like Greece is just about to win a two year reprieve on getting it’s debt under control. Portugal just got a two year reprieve as well. So, you could point to some small victories. I would say that the strikes do a little bit for the workers caused, but not nearly as much as unions would like to see.

Werman: What about just, you know, for people who aren’t striking, trying to go about their daily lives, how much have all these strikes and all the people turning out in the streets disrupted life in, say, a city like Barcelona.

Hadden: Yea, well, the point of these strikes is to make life inconvenient, I mean that’s how you draw attention to what you’re doing. If everyone were just sort of standing calmly on the side-walk waving banners, noone would pay any attention. I was down at rush-hour at the main subway and metro hub in Barcelona. Literally, all the hallways were gated shut, and, it seemed that most residents of Barcelona knew that this was happening. It was almost like a ghost-town down there. But, every once in a while a tourist with suitcases would come rolling in, and sort of spin around in circles confused, and inevitably they would come up to me, the guy standing there with a microphone, and asking, ‘What’s going on?’. And I’d explain to them as I could, ‘Well there’s a strike today, and there are no trains until 5:00 in the afternoon’. And they’d roll their eyes, and head off trying to figure out what they were going to do next.

Werman: Right

Hadden: The buses on the street, there was minimum service, but, that was interrupted because the picketers would stop any bus they could and just sticker the windshield so that the drivers literally couldn’t drive any more. So. So life was complicated for commuters, but, people knew for a long time the strike was coming, so I think they were prepared.

Werman: Now, one thing that struck me, the coordination of all these strikes in all these different countries, is there anything to note there? I mean, it feels like every time I saw a strike in Greece, it was just a strike in Greece and the next day, there’d be one in Madrid. But today, all together, No?

Hadden: There’s a confederation of European Unions that’s existed for a long time, and I think what’s happened is they finally got together and said, ‘We shouldn’t just be striking individually. This is a European Union problem. We’re all members of this Union, and we’re all fighting the same battle, so let’s pick a date, and let’s get together and let’s send a much stronger message to Brussels that everybody is suffering. It’s not just one community or the other’. And I think today, strikers felt a lot more emboldened knowing that they were standing with fellow workers across the continent.

Werman: The World’s Gerry Hadden as always. Thanks for the update.

Hadden: My Pleasure Marco.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Demonstrators take part in a march during a 24-hour nationwide general strike (Photo: Reuters)

Spain’s unemployment is already the highest in the European Union. So this hardly comes as welcome news for a government trying to avoid an international bailout.

When British Airways merged with Iberia in 2011, the joint venture’s new slogan was, “Stronger Together.“ It hasn’t exactly worked out that way.

The news came from Bloomberg TV Friday: 4,500 jobs, 25 planes will go. Iberia, long a symbol of Spanish identity, is reeling.

The conglomerate that owns the airline, International Airline Group, or IAG, said Iberia is losing more than $2 million a day. IAG added without layoffs and restructuring it’ll be grounded for good.

Iberia isn’t just any old airline. For many it’s inseparable from Spain itself. An indelible part of the national identity. When it merged with British last year, some worried for its future in the hands of foreigners. Friday some Spanish media reacted to the layoffs almost as if the country itself were under attack.

On national radio Friday morning, journalist Ricardo Martin said the news was just terrible. He said, “the truth is we’re facing the dismantling a company that belongs to all Spaniards. “

Actually, Iberia hasn’t been Spanish for over a decade. It was privatized and sold in 2001. Although this year the Spanish government did accidentally become its biggest shareholder again, when it was forced to nationalize a bank – and Iberia shareholder – called Bankia.

Iberia officials acknowledge they’ve lost their competitive edge to low-cost lines such as RyanAir and EasyJet. That’s why Iberia started its own low-cost venture, called Vueling. But Friday, as IAG was announcing Iberia’s massive layoffs, it took control of Vueling via stock purchases. That’s angered Iberia execs further.

But Vueling makes money. So does IAG’s other airline, British Airways. But the president of the Spanish airline pilots’ union, Justo Peral, said BA has deliberately brought Iberia to its knees.

“They want to condemn Iberia to death,” he told Spanish radio, “strip it of its very Spanish-ness. After all we Spaniards have invested in Spanish infrastructure. As the Brits hire more staff and grow their business, financing themselves with shares of Iberia, they dare to fire thousands of our workers.”

Peral warned of massive protests.

It isn’t all bad news in Spain Friday. An iconic Spanish company may be up against the ropes, but a major carmaker has announced plans to hire 250 Spaniards as it expands operations in Sevilla.

That company is French. Renault. It’s not a lot of jobs. But with unemployment at 25 percent nationally, every bit helps.

Follow @gerryhadden

As Americans vote, host Aaron Schachter canvasses opinions from The World’s team of correspondents around the globe.

Europe

From Paris and Barcelona, correspondents Amy Bracken and Gerry Hadden describe how people in Europe are viewing the presidential election.

South Africa

From Cape Town, correspondent Anders Kelto talks with Aaron Schachter and Marco Werman about the continuing symbolic power of Barack Obama in African countries, even as many in the region look beyond the United States for international leadership.

China

From Beijing, correspondent Mary Kay Magistad says the focus there is not on the US election, but on the Chinese People’s Congress. It’s meeting this week behind closed doors to select a new set of leaders for that country.

Iran

From London, The World’s Marco Werman speaks with staff from the BBC’s Persian Service about why the US election is so important for Iran. Pooneh Ghoddosi is a host at the BBC Persian Service; Amir Azimi, who speaks first, is news editor.

Israel

From Jerusalem, correspondent Matthew Bell reports on the implications of the election for Israel, and on support there for both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

More from The World’s Marco Werman in London

The World Votes: The US Presidency Overseas

Amy says the election is being followed very closely in France, but it’s not quite as “electric” as it was four years ago.

From Spain, Gerry says the overall interest is “more muted than it was four years ago.”

Some of that has do to with the economic crisis in Europe, but there’s also disappointment in Obama for not keeping promises made during the last election.

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Aaron Schacter: For several days Marco Werman has been bringing us global views on the election from London. Let’s head now to other parts of Europe to a couple of our own correspondents. First we have Amy Bracken in Paris. Amy, the U.S. elections, are they a big deal where you are?

Amy Bracken: You know, you’d almost think that people here were actually voting. It’s just amazing how much coverage there’s been. And I’ve been learning a lot from the coverage, just reading the newspapers, learning about how the whole electoral process works, learning about the details of the candidates families, and where they stand on the issues. People are following this very closely. I wasn’t here four years ago, I understand it was really electric four years ago, people say it’s not quite that. Now there might be a little bit more fear of things changing for the worse, but people are pretty into this. They’re pretty excited.

Schacter: Well thank goodness for the French media. You learn a little bit there. Amy, you were out and about today in Paris. What were people telling you?

Bracken: Some people talked about more specific policies, some people talked about health care. I talked to one person who had just emerged from the hospital. He’s a furniture maker, he injured himself on the job, his name is Frederique Sanchez, and I spoke with him in a cafe this morning in Paris.

Frederique Sanchez: He’s trying to put healthcare for all Americans, and this is a big thing. A man who’ll do things like that can’t be a bad man.

Schacter: Amy, hold on for just a moment. We’re going to turn now to Gerry Hadden in Barcelona. Gerry, the sentiment there? Similar? Hope, excitement, a little bit of fear, perhaps?

Gerry Hadden: Well, I think compared to what Amy’s been telling us, the over-all interest in the U.S. election here is decidedly more muted than it was four years ago. A lot of that has to do with the economic crisis going on here. It also has to do with some disappoint in Obama himself. As Amy mentioned, Europeans were very excited when he was elected four years ago, in part because of some of the promises he made, especially closing down Guantanamo Bay, and so forth. They also thought that he was going to pay more attention to Europe than he has over the past four years. The flip side is Mitt Romney, and I have to say, my sense is that he hasn’t made much of a deep impression in Europe. The other day I asked a parent down at my kid’s school who she’d like to see as the next American President, and here’s part of what she said.

Woman: [Speaking Spanish]

Hadden: Basically, she wants to say that she doesn’t know much about Mitt Romney, but she can even remember his name. I think it’s fair to say that across Europe Romney has left somewhat of a shallow footprint, and when he has mentioned Europe in the campaign, it’s only been to hold it up as an example of failure. The failure of the so called ‘Welfare State,’ which to his mind means a state that over spends and over coddles it’s citizens with social services, such as universal healthcare, and many people find that insulting. Related to that, he’s also a proponent of austerity, of slashing government spending, and if you look at Spain and Greece, the two poster children for austerity in Europe, their economies are imploding, and both have unemployment rates hovering around 25%. So when Romney mentions slashing government spending, what more and more Europeans in the south of the continent are hearing is, ‘economic suicide.’

Schacter: And he also used both Spain and Greece in debates as examples of what the United States does not want to become.

Hadden: That’s right.

Schacter: Now, this is a question for both you Gerry, in Spain, and you, Amy, in France. What really struck you about this election from your vantage point there and the sentiment in Europe?

Bracken: One thing, I was struck by how uncritical people were. I expected a lot more criticism of Obama. I think that people-, you know, a number of people said, ‘Hey, you know, I see this differently from how I would as an American, I don’t really know all the details of his policies. But what I see on the other end is this guy – and it’s funny, Gerry a lot of people here couldn’t think of his name, either – this other guy who, he seems to be unpredictable, he’s very far to the right. I was just stuck by, sort of, how clear the divisions were in people’s minds.

Hadden: What surprised me, really, this time around, is this sort of-. you know, I have to say, a low level of interest in the details of the election. I have interviewed people all over Spain, even as far as Germany before this election. When you ask people, ‘Who would you like to see as the next President,’ invariably people were saying to me, ‘Obama,’ but when asked, ‘Why?’ or what issues were important, people would just kind of shrug, especially in Spain, and say, ‘Well, you know, it’s the most powerful country in the world,’ but no one really had pressing issues vis-a-vis the United States that they wanted to talk about. I really think it has to do with the fact that people are simply just struggling so much with their own economic situations, trying to find jobs, or hang on to jobs, or just make ends meet. That has somehow put the U.S. election at a greater distance than we’ve seen in the past.

Schacter: The World’s Gerry Hadden from Barcelona, and Amy Hadden joined us from Paris. Thank you guys.

Bracken: Thank you.

Hadden: Thanks a lot.

Copyright ©2012 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.