Shouting "occupation forces out" and "the streets will always be ours," some 300,000 people took to the streets of Barcelona Tuesday, city police said, to protest police violence during a banned weekend independence referendum in Catalonia.

Columns of people converged on the city centre as the region went on general strike, a police helicopter flying overhead, drawing angry whistles as Catalans reel from the unrest that marred parts of the Spanish region on Sunday.