Massive crowds of protesters marched in cities across Argentina, including the capital Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Mendoza and Tucuman, on Tuesday. The protesters called for the government of libertarian President Javier Milei to implement a university funding law at the center of a lengthy political standoff. In Buenos Aires, the march culminated at the Plaza de Mayo, where the presidential palace is located, and spilled onto surrounding streets. Organizers estimated that some 600,000 students, university staff, union members and opposition supporters attended the protest in the capital with 1.5 million taking part countrywide. “It’s very clear this government is determined to defund public education,” Sol Muniz, a 24-year-old law student at the University of Buenos Aires at the march, told the Associated Press. “University is a source of pride for us. It is the best thing we have.” “I’m here to defend public education,” 18-year-old literature student Renata Lopez told the AFP news agency. She held a copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a novel that depicts a future dystopian society that has outlawed books. The novel “speaks to our current reality,” Lopez said. “Defunding education isn’t something alien, it isn’t dystopian. It’s something that’s happening.”

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