Curators were forced to remove a precious cup from display in a church in Spain when crowds swarmed there after historians claimed it was the Holy Grail, staff said.

Visitors flocked to the San Isidro basilica in the northwestern city of Leon after two historians published a book saying the ancient goblet was the mythical chalice from which Christ sipped at the Last Supper.

Protesters set up burning barricades at a top Spanish university and thousands demonstrated across the country on Thursday in a strike against education reforms that has seen scores of arrests.

A police spokeswoman told Agence France Presse that officers arrested one person on Thursday morning "for possession of flammable material" after bins were burned at Madrid's Complutense university campus.

Police arrested 50 people who burned bins and occupied offices at a top Spanish university on Wednesday in a protest against education cuts, authorities said.

"In the early morning a group of 50 youths put up barricades and started burning containers to block access to the campus at the Complutense," Madrid's main university, a police spokesman told AFP.

Leaders in Catalonia vowed Wednesday to press ahead with the region's drive for independence despite a tough challenge from Spanish judges who overruled its claims of sovereignty.

Spain's Constitutional Court on Tuesday dealt a blow to those in the indebted region who want to let citizens vote on whether to become a separate state, shortly after Scotland holds its own referendum on independence.

Spanish judges on Tuesday branded illegal a planned referendum on independence for Catalonia, dealing a blow to the indebted region's drive for self-rule.

The northeastern region vowed to push on with the vote, however, defying fierce resistance from the national government.

Tens of thousands of people bade farewell Tuesday to Adolfo Suarez, the statesman who led Spain to democracy after the Franco dictatorship, as his coffin was borne through the streets of Madrid before his burial.

Mourners applauded and took pictures as a horse-drawn gun carriage transported the flag-drapped casket from parliament where it had been lying in state to Cibeles Square to a solemn drum beat.

Spain Tuesday arrested 35 people from a violent street gang born in San Salvador as part of a major police crackdown on the growing threat from Latin American crime groups.

Some 300 Guardia Civil police carried out 28 raids against the notorious Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, in their first such strike against the group, police said in a statement.

Thousands of Spaniards flocked to the nation's parliament Monday to pay their respects to Adolfo Suarez, the prime minister who led the country to democracy after decades of dictatorship under Franco.

Onlookers applauded as eight soldiers wearing white gloves carried his flag-drapped coffin into the parliament building where in 1981 Suarez reacted coolly to a coup attempt.

Around 100 fugitives from ETA said Saturday they will return to the Spanish Basque country from southwestern France as the considerably weakened separatist group moves towards a historic disarmament.

Earlier this month western Europe's last major violent separatist movement said it would put its arsenal of weapons "out of operational use," more than two years after announcing a definitive end to armed activity.

Violence broke out at a mass demonstration in Madrid late Saturday when dozens of youths began throwing projectiles at police, who responded by charging at them.

Tens of thousands of people marched on the Spanish capital in a mostly peaceful protest against austerity policies, but an Agence France Presse journalist said youths later began smashing windows and setting bins on fire.