Angry workers staged mass demonstrations in Spanish cities on Sunday, protesting the country's high unemployment rate and demanding political reform.

Thousands of demonstrators including health, transport and administrative workers marched in central Madrid and Barcelona, to the din of horns, drums and yells of "Government resign!"

Spain's 75-year-old King Juan Carlos left hospital Saturday, nearly a week after undergoing lower back surgery, his seventh operation in three years.

"I am feeling very well, I feel no pain in my back or anywhere else," he told reporters as he was driven out of Madrid's La Milagrosa hospital.

With a flick of the wrist, residents of a futuristic home developed in Spain can browse Internet pages displayed on the living room walls, switch off a giant projected alarm clock in the bedroom or transform the entire interior into a busy streetscape or tranquil beach.

It may seem light years ahead of current "smart home" technology, but this prototype apartment in Fuenterrabia, a city in Spain's northern Basque country, is far from the realms of fantasy.

Spain's 75-year-old King Juan Carlos left intensive care Monday after undergoing lower back surgery at a Madrid hospital.

The king was discharged in the morning from the intensive care unit of the La Milagrosa hospital, where he will continue his recovery, the director of the hospital. Gaspar Palet, told reporters.

The Spanish government said on Friday it would launch a legal challenge to a bid by the Catalonia region to hold a referendum on breaking away from Spain.

The region's parliament in January passed a "declaration of sovereignty" which it said provided grounds for Catalonia "to exercise its right to decide" on its political future.

Bailed-out Spanish banking giant Bankia suffered a loss of 19 billion euros ($25 billion) in 2012, it said in an earnings statement Thursday.

It said the losses were as expected after the Spanish government nationalized Bankia in May, turning it into a symbol of Spain's banking collapse.

Spaniards furious at hardship and corruption scandals in the financial crisis massed in cities across the country on Saturday in a "citizens' tide" of protests.

Thousands converged in central Madrid in a din of drums and whistles, in one of scores of demonstrations called by a grouping of civil movements.

Basques from Spain and France on Saturday formally launched a new pro-independence party, Sortu, born from the ashes of Batasuna which was outlawed for links to armed separatists ETA.

About 300 delegates from the Basque regions of Spain and France elected leaders for the left-wing party at a congress in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona.

Spanish King Juan Carlos's son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin worked on Saturday to distance the royal family from a corruption scandal that has struck at the heart of the palace.

Urdangarin, husband of the king's youngest daughter Cristina, was questioned by a judge investigating allegations that he embezzled millions of euros of public money paid to Noos, a charity he managed.

When King Juan Carlos appeared at a recent basketball game in front of thousands of subjects, he was greeted by persistent heckling and whistling. It was an unprecedented spectacle in a nearly four-decade reign over which the monarch has basked in the nation's love and respect.

What happened? The immediate cause is a corruption scandal engulfing Juan Carlos' son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, which has angered Spaniards in a time of crushing austerity. But the aging Juan Carlos himself has seemed increasingly out of touch with his people as they try to keep afloat in Europe's economic storm.