A balloon featuring Italian Prime minister Matteo Renzi as Pinocchio is displayed during a general strike called by several trade union organisations to protest against the government’s economic policy, on Friday in Rome.

By Alvise Armellini/DPA/Rome

On Friday, he was presented with the strongest display of opposition in 10 months of government, as the CGIL and UIL unions claimed to have attracted on to the streets at least 270,000 people for a general strike against labour reforms and austerity.

“Squares are full of people all around Italy. The prime minister must take into account these squares, and these people who are paying for the strike out of their own pockets,” UIL executive Antonio Foccillo said at an event in Pescara, in central Italy.

Unions called the strike in opposition to plans to make it easier to hire and fire people, and austerity clauses in a budget law for next year which is nevertheless rather generous, containing tax cuts worth 12.6bn euros ($15.7bn).

But according to some commentators, the main trigger for the protests is Renzi’s go-it-alone approach, in break with previous government practice that saw major economic policy decisions being worked out in concert with unions and business associations.

“It is a purely political strike against the government, guilty of having abandoned dialogue with trade unions,” editorialist Dario Di Vico wrote on Corriere della Sera, a centrist, pro-establishment newspaper.

Renzi himself said last week that it was enough for him to have to haggle with parliamentarians to push legislation through. “No way I am going to start negotiating also with trade unions,” he told the La7 TV channel.

Such remarks were especially galling as they came from the leader of the Democratic Party (PD), a centre-left force with Communist roots and historic links to the CGIL, Italy’s biggest union with more than 5mn members.

Renzi - who lists another left-of-centre union-basher among his political heroes, former British Labour prime minister Tony Blair - was even more flippant last month.

“More than having people go on strike, I worry about finding a job for them: rather than spending my time making up reasons to go on strike, I worry about creating jobs,” he told RTL 102.5 radio.

So far, the ambitious 39-year-old has not had much success. Unemployment is at a record high, the economy shows no sign of exiting a three-year recession and the government is under EU pressure to do more to cut a huge pile of public debt.

The prime minister also faces constant sniping from the more leftist faction of the PD, whose leaders have for weeks been threatening to split from the party, and who took part in Friday’s protests.

Yet, there was no sign of government wavering after the unions’ show of strength - which paled in comparison to a 1mn-strong general strike in 2002, which forced then premier Silvio Berlusconi to retract labour reforms similar to those Renzi is sponsoring now.

“We are listening to people, but we intend to go on with the implementation of reforms, we cannot afford to hit on the brakes, the EU is asking to be consistent with our commitments,” Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti said from Brussels.

For all the unrest, opinion polls are still favourable to the PD leader - if only for a lack of better alternatives, given the declining fortunes of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo.

According to a survey published by Italia Oggi, Renzi would comfortably win snap elections, albeit amid a record-low turnout. But the paper also found that popularity ratings for his government have dropped to 46%, from a high of 66% in June.