Thousands gather in Rome to protest Italy cuts

Wielding red flags and placards, they urged the centre-left Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, to scrap austerity measures and focus on job creation.

Public trust in his fragile coalition with the centre-right is dropping, opinion polls suggest as the country experiences its longest recession in more than 40 years.

National debt is now about 127% of annual economic output, second only to Greece in the eurozone.

Unemployment is at a record high of 11.5% - 38% for the under-25s.

An estimated 100,000 people, including many of the young jobless, took part in the protest march, but there were some noteworthy absentees - the leaders of the left-wing Democratic Party, the party of Prime Minister Enrico Letta.

The head of the metal worker's union, Maurizio Landini, taunted the party leadership, accusing them of being afraid of coming out on to the streets.

Before taking office,  Letta vowed to make job creation his priority, but critics are unhappy that he has focused on property tax reform.

The issues of social justice and poverty came up when German Chancellor Angela Merkel had talks with the new Pope at the Vatican on Saturday.

Organised by the metalworkers' union FIOM and the CGIL union, Saturday's peaceful march and rally drew supporters from across the country.

"We ask the government to change [former Prime Minister Mario] Monti's and [former Prime Minister Mario Silvio] Berlusconi's politics," said Maurizio Landini, leader of the FIOM.

"If they don't change, as the country asked for with its vote, we are going nowhere."

One of the protesters, Enzo Bernardis, told Reuters news agency: "We hope that this government will finally start listening to us because we are losing our patience."

Soon after being appointed, Letta met other eurozone leaders to convey growing public unrest over austerity measures in Italy.

But the new prime minister has to maintain a delicate balance between the policies of his own supporters and those of the centre-right, led by Berlusconi.

Italy's coalition was only formed after two months of post-election deadlock.