Around 40,000 people marched through the center of Madrid on Sunday in protest at the cutbacks in health and education spending which have just been implemented by the government of Mariano Rajoy.

The cuts will slash a total of 10 billion euros (13.2 billion U.S. dollars) from the health and education budget, with 7 billion euros of the reduction coming from health.

The measures adopted by the government include charging pensioners 10 percent of prescription costs, while moves have been introduced to deny access to the health service to immigrants without papers.

The march took place under the banner "You do not play with Education and Health" and demonstrations were held in 55 different Spanish towns and cities.

Although the number of participants was not as high as on recent protest marches, it should be taken into account that the march took place on a rainy Sunday in the middle of a long holiday weekend when many people have left Madrid and coincided with a home game football game for Real Madrid, just two kilometers north of where the march was held.

May 1 will see the celebration of another major demonstration in the Spanish capital with a protest planned against the recent labor reforms of the Popular Party (PP) government.

This march will almost certainly see a much higher turnout, given its wider agenda and the fact that the government has refused to make any concessions since the General Strike on March 29.

Meanwhile the publishing of employment figures showing a further 369,500 Spaniards have lost their jobs in the first three months of 2012 has merely served to raise the level of anger at the reforms being implemented by Rajoy and his party.

Rajoy on Sunday repeated that his party would not be diverted from its agenda, and said the reforms would continue until the end of his government's mandate. "I am totally conscious of what we are doing," he said.