The streets outside Argentina’s parliament were turned into a “battlefield” as police clashed with protesters wielding petrol bombs over the president’s controversial reforms.

Javier Milei’s package of shock-therapy laws narrowly won preliminary senate approval late on Wednesday before demonstrations became violent.

Lawmakers for hours debated a swath of liberalising reforms proposed by the budget-slashing president, while security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at rioting demonstrators outside.

Late in the evening, the package won approval “in general” in the senate, an important step for Milei’s effort to finally get his flagship reforms across the finish line. 

But the move was marred by more violent scenes, leaving MPs, protesters and police injured.

Victoria Villaruel, the country’s vice president and senate leader, said after breaking the 36-36 tie in the chamber: “For those Argentines who suffer, who wait, who do not want to see their children leave the country... my vote is affirmative.”

Scuffles broke out earlier when protesters tried to bypass a system of fences set up between them and Congress. 

Officers used rubber bullets and pepper spray against the rioters, who responded by throwing stones at the police.

Seven people, including five MPs among the protesters, were treated at hospital after being pepper sprayed, according to the health ministry.

Dozens of others received medical attention at the scene.

Later, as night fell, thick blocks of shield-bearing officers and others on motorbikes pushed the protesters back, who overturned two cars - one of which belonged to a local media organisation - and set them on fire.

At least 10 people were arrested and nine police officers were injured, a spokesman for the Ministry of Security told AFP.

In one scene, a lone protester stood and held his hand in military salute as he faced a phalanx of police in riot gear, with smoke from canisters swirling around him.

The office of the president denounced “the terrorist groups that with sticks, stones and even grenades, tried to perpetrate a coup d’etat.”

Inside the congress, senators were debating what remains of Milei’s flagship reform bill - which was rejected in its original form and approved with major changes by the lower house in April.

The whittled-down bill has 238 articles - slimmed from an initial 600-plus.

The measures include declaring a one-year state of economic emergency, allowing Milei to disband federal agencies, and privatising a dozen public companies including state-owned carrier Aerolineas Argentina.

Other measures deal with reducing access to minimum retirement allowances and weakening labour protections - slammed by Left-wing opponents as a licence to sack workers.

Prior to the bill’s preliminary senate approval, opposition lawmakers took to the floor claiming it would reverse decades of progress.

Mariano Recalde, opposition senator, said the labour reforms, in particular, “take us back to the last century when the employee had no labour rights.”

The measure is opposed by social organisations, leftist political parties, retirees, teachers and labour unions.

Fabio Nunez, a 55-year-old lawyer among the protesters, said: “We cannot believe that in Argentina we are discussing a law that will put us back 100 years.”

Minority in congress

Milei’s party is in the minority in both houses of congress, which he has described as a “nest of rats,” and the president has not had any legislation passed since taking office last December.

The self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” won the country’s November elections vowing to take a chainsaw to public spending and eliminate the budget deficit.

By decree, he has halved the cabinet, slashed 50,000 public jobs, suspended new public works contracts and ripped away fuel and transport subsidies even as wage-earners lost a fifth of their purchasing power and annual inflation approached 300 percent.

Luis Caputo, Argentina’s economy minister, insisted on Tuesday that the bill is “an accelerator, an enabler of economic recovery.”

The debate is taking place with the economy mired in recession, amid a slump in construction, manufacturing and consumption.