About 30 people were injured last Tuesday when Spanish police used rubber bullets and smoke grenades to disperse protesting shipworkers in the southern city of Seville, authorities said. Around 700 workers took part in the protest at the Astilleros Sevilla shipbuilding yard on the Guadalquivir River to demand subsidies for the industry, despite European Union directives against such aid. Unions blamed the police for the violence. "The police were not interested in any mediation, they simply set about clearing the area using disproportionate force," said Ignacio Sanchez, a union representative at the shipyard. Workers armed with pieces of metal fought with police and set two cars ablaze as burning barricades.